Pour House Pub vs. Brentwood Tavern – the Austin saga continues
As far as everyone knew, Brentwood Tavern had to close due to issues with the lease. Most venues with live music have to deal with whiners in the neighborhood, and Brentwood was no exception. However, I believe the biggest rigamaroll was with the new landlord/lease situation.
Although we have been to Brentwood a few times, we haven’t yet made it to Pour House, but on October 26th, while they were still working on the roof and whatnot, I nosed around and had the pleasure of discovering that Brentwood Tavern was coming back to life! It’s about time!!!! Yay!!
There are three possible thumbs-down to Pour House already:
- no playscape
- the new fence is VERY high, so you can’t just sit there and enjoy people watching and passing traffic on Burnet
- and (worst of all) little-to-no live music. They are still working out the issues with live music (loudness, etc.)
I guess they are really turning this into a true bar/pub rather than a family/music/hamburgers-n-beer venue. We shall see.
Oh well, better to have Brentwood back to life than no Brentwood at all!
p.s. What happened to the Brentwood sign?
Regarding the Review Above:
This was my original (pre)review on Pour House on Yelp.com. I thought my review might help the former Brentwood Tavern customers (particularly those with families) understand the new Pour House format.
My review was flagged & removed, which makes me wonder if the new owners are watching all their friends’ reviews roll in. Or, if it really is just the doing of another Yelper.
I know of a local coffeehouse whose owner monitors all of their shop’s reviews and he flags pretty much any review with a remotely negative comment.
I wonder if the guy who said their queso sucked will get flagged.
Oh well, I believe that Yelp was correct to remove my review because I “technically” haven’t been to this place yet. See below.
From Yelp:
We’re writing to let you know about our decision to remove your review of Pour House Pub. Your review was flagged by the Yelp community, and our Support team has determined that it falls outside our Review Guidelines (http://www.yelp.com/faq#great_review) because it lacks a relevant first-hand experience. Reviews should focus on the core of the normal customer experience.
I also find it convenient that not only was my review flagged today, but another Yelper seemed to write a direct response to my review.
Here’s a snippet from Steve D.: “C’mon peeps, the Brentwood Tavern is gone… kaputt, dead… so get over it. It’s a new bar… new sign, new stuff…”
Guess what, Steve? You can put up a new sign all you want, but the fact is that Brentwood had an ENORMOUS following and it will take a long time for Pour House Pub to live up to the expectation set forth by its predecessor.
Here’s the two major things that made it a popular place:
- LIVE MUSIC. Tons of awesome music was played on the stage which is now covered in patio furniture. I really doubt a jukebox will ever cut it. A jukebox? In Austin??? Besides, they have to pay royalties on jukebox music. Why not pay an actual live musician??
- FAMILY-FRIENDLINESS. If I’m not mistaken, I do see a recently uploaded pic on Yelp which shows a “snotty-nosed, whining kid” (as Steve D. calls them) in the background of the new bar, playing in the sand of the former playscape. Oopsie! Maybe that mother didn’t realize she wasn’t allowed to bring her child there, eh, Steve?
I’m sorry, but it surely wasn’t the run-of-the-mill food that drew people to Brentwood Tavern; that place just had a SOUL about it.
And the new owners of Pour House Pub will indeed have to live down Brentwood’s reputation. How much do you want to bet that at least 75% of their business during these opening weeks is made up of MOSTLY BRENTWOOD TAVERN GOERS?
If Pour House is meant to be an adult establishment, whether it is a beer joint or an outright titty bar, or whatever—that’s great. More power to them. All the better for the sour economy. I’m not above an adult-only venue myself.
But it sure is nice to have a place (like Joe’s Crabshack) where you can relax with your beer and a little live music while the kids are busy getting dirty and not bugging you about “when are we leaving??”
However, the Brentwood Tavern fans just aren’t going to understand the new Pour House format unless they make things clear from the get-go.
