Critic's Review
Review 12/30/14
The old smokey and useless East Side Pub has closed, and it's been taken over by the people who own Sage Cafe next door. They've converted it to an open-air music venue, claiming to try to pick up where O'Hara's left off. Of course Blue Jean Blues did that a bit better years ago; but it's not O'Haras if it's not on Las Olas.
It's certainly better than East Side Pub; of course a box and a chair would be better. I would have preferred to get a table inside, but they really don't have any.
I was going to sit at the end of the bar, but there's a lot of stuff on the bar that seemed like it would be uncomfortable. So I moved down the bar. The bar is desolate during the day; it sort of looks like a night time venue that just opens during the day for the heck of it.
There's a stage mid-bar and lots of taps. The menu comes in a confusing book, with the food menu on like page 6. You can also order from sage, so if you'd prefer roast duck you can get that also. They share a kitchen with Sage, so it's just a transportation issue
They have a "lunch box" special, which is the only thing potentially less expensive about lunch. Considering that there's no band at lunch, they should probably do more. One thing I didn't like is that their burger menu is on a blackboard and not in the menu. The menu isn't anything fancy, so I'm not sure why they think it's ok to have a customer get up and go over to look at the blackboard, since you can't read it from where I was sitting. I ordered an iced tea and a lunch burger medium rare with cheddar cheese and a side salad. Fries are included; its $1 more ($12.50) for a salad or sweet potato fries.
The tea was delivered without sweeteners.
One thing here is that the music is outstanding: The Stones, Foreigner, Creedence, ZZ Top, Guns N Roses. Sweet.
I didn't properly research this place and didn't know that Sage owned it; if I knew I probably wouldn't have come. When they told me, I almost left, but that would have been weird. But I knew that my chances of getting anything special was very low. When the burger was delivered, I knew my premonition was accurate.
Pretty ordinary. I'd ordered blue cheese dressing, but they didn't have it, so they gave me something else. Some sort of creamy italian. Apparently they don't have blue cheese at all, as they don't have any blue cheese burgers.
The burger was unseasoned and cooked medium. I had to fetch my own salt, pepper and ketchup from the service area.
You'd think that restaurants that charge $12 for a hamburger would at least cut out the bad parts of the tomatoes, but none of them do. I also didn't get any pickles. The burger was "ok", but if I was paying more for "Florida grass fed" beef, someone was wasting their money; it was kind of dry and fat is what makes a burger taste good.
Salads shouldn't be served on paper, because you can't cut anything on paper, and it just becomes a big mess with the dressing.
Conclusion
This place is sort of a bad Rok:Brgr clone. It's pretty uninspiring at lunch time; it's probably more interesting at night when they have live music. I wouldn't come here just to eat; I don't see the point of paying Las Olas prices in this part of town.
You can probably get a burger in Sage as well, so you might as well go there and get a booth.
