Post #452012 by Koolau on Wed, May 6, 2009 1:31 AM

Signs that you might be having a bad experience at Trader Vic's Las Vegas:

Patio is packed with 20 year olds - you head inside the restaurant, and notice it is completely empty.

A waitress walks by - when you ask if it would be OK to sit at the bar, she answers "Sure, but there's no bartender in here."

You head outside, sit at the bar, and notice that all drinks are being served in clear plastic cups.

A bartender is simultaneously making four Red Bull and vodkas.

When you ask for a "Navy Grog", the bartender stares at you blankly, then walks over and looks at something tacked to the wall. He fills a plastic cup with ice, goes back to look at the wall again, looks at the bottles in the well, looks at the wall again, then says he has to talk to the other bartender.

After the other bartender is done opening Corona bottles, she comes over and asks you for your ID. Your hair is grey - not in some highlighted and spiked cool way that could be mistaken for grey - just plain old grey.

You ask again for a Navy Grog. The bartender opens a can of grapefruit juice, pours it into your glass along with a splash of syrup, then free-pours three bottles of booze into your drink at the same time.

You get your Trader Vic's Navy Grog in a plastic cup, take a sip, and taste grapefruit juice and rum.

When you complain that there's no allspice flavor, and tell her this isn't a Navy Grog, she says "That's how they trained us to make them." You state again that it's not right, she offers to make another drink. You figure you better keep it simple, so ask for a Mai Tai.

She nods her head, turns half a step, and then says "We're all out of dark rum - I don't know if that makes a difference to you."

You stare at her and just say "No thank you." You finish your grapefruit juice and rum.

Charge for this fun - $12.

I've had some good times at TVLV in the past (as recent as last Christmas) and I really didn't want to add to the crap parade, but this visit was just so amazingly bad. They literally did nothing right. And yet, the twentysomethings on the patio seemed to be having a great time, so I guess they did nothing right for a Trader Vic's, but have the whole College Bar thing nailed.