Picturesque

“Wow, it’s dark in here.”

You are almost obligated to utter this phrase the moment you step into the inky depths of the Forestville Club, (Front St, Forestville). Indeed, everyone who entered after us did exactly that. It’s kind of hard to judge the typical crowd of a bar when you visit on a sunny, Sunday morning but unless you are there for one of the weekend shows featuring local bands, I can’t think of a single reason you’d visit the Forestville Club unless you were a townie. That’s not to say that there aren’t more reasons to stop in, it’s just that everything about it screams “locals only.”

The bartender poured a very stiff drink (-50)* but then again, there are things that can be inferred about a person who stops into a bar like this in the morning and starts ordering Screwdrivers. So since the majority of her customers would have appreciated that, it’s not a major issue. The fact that she hadn’t quite mastered the ability to keep her BSC (Bartender Superiority Complex) under control was much more irritating (-100). She smiled and was “friendly” but not genuinely, and definitely with an air of condescension. Fine, I wasn’t there to chat up the bartender anyway.

I like the layout of the Forestville Club. There’s the narrow bar area, another room with seating and the stage and then a third room for the three pool tables. The tables were just recovered (+200) and there is a great selection of nice, new pool cues (+100) but points off for not providing adequate chalk (-50) and no hand chalk at all (-50).

There is a jukebox (+25) and video game machine (+25) for your amusement as well.

The bathrooms were more pleasant than what I would have expected for a place like this (+50), well stocked and fairly clean. The booze selection was fair and the prices reasonable.

As previously mentioned, there is a stage where live music performs most weekends (+150) but I’ve found that the cover charge is usually a little steep for the venue (-50). You can park in the smallish lot just downhill from the bar.

Top 5 Reasons to Go to the Forestville Club:

1) You want to shoot pool on a nice table

2) You wish to get very drunk, cheaply

3) You are seeing a show there

4) You are a vampire looking for respite from the sun

5) You enjoy being leered at by local drunks

***You may have noticed that this review uses a new and improved, completely arbitrary scoring system that I may or may not use at my discretion depending on my mood.

Total Score: 250