First off, to get in this place, you are basically flying blind because you have to navigate through the haze of smoke to even find the door due to the amount of smokers hovering around the entrance. When you finally get in, good luck finding a seat because it's usually as crowded as Black Friday at the mall- and with an even surlier crowd. The waitresses seem to care more about chatting amongst themselves than seating us, even though the sign says to wait to be seated. We eventually just sat ourselves at the only available table and waited. And waited. And waited. After what felt like an eternity, a disinterested hostess halfheartedly plopped ONE menu in front of the FOUR of us. We had to ask for more menus and the way she reacted you'd think we asked her to pull a truck across Millis with her teeth.
By the time we got the other menus, all of us had already decided what we wanted, but she walked away anyway. She reemerged from the depths eons later and took our order. Then the waiting game began again. Luckily, there was an amazing band playing, Clyde Brown (now defunct), so it made the wait a little more bearable. When we got our food, it was what we asked for and was pretty good, as well as being a large portion, so that's where the second star comes from. Before we get to the "main course", let's discuss the atmosphere.
I wouldn't say its a swillpit as another reviewer had said, but it isn't pretty. This place is a magnet for drunk townies, and the clientele is rather sketchy. The juxtaposed nature of the families and the rowdy rabble of riffraff at the Nascar themed bar was astounding. Imagine trying to explain to your child the urban dictionary of curse words these people throw around while trying to enjoy some chicken fingers. Now back to the meal. When the waitress meandered back to our table, we payed the bill with a coupon from the Millis Football fundraiser. It says right on the card that it is reusable, but the waitress returned the receipt with no coupon. She claimed her boss told her to keep it. I persisted and eventually got her to go back and talk to her boss. She returned decades later with the card and then told me her boss said to give it back to me, as it is reusable. Now, I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but something about both of her stories doesn't add up. Either way, I got my coupon back so I was happy. Now on to the main event.
The band was in between sets and we were sitting enjoying some waters and shooting the breeze. We were seated next to the Keno machine, so we saw a good amount of "patrons" come by to play their luck. However, there was one encounter that was just... unreal. A woman, clearly into the double digits on drinks, stumbled over and began to mumble, seemingly conversing with us. After a few jumbled, near incoherent sentences it became clear that she thought we were the members of the band. She pointed me out specifically and told me that with my "raspy voice", I was "going places". She gave us the advice to "get out of Millis", specifically to a bar in Rhode Island, near the "tip of Connecticut" (her words), the King's Tavern. According to her, it takes 45 minutes on her motorcycle to get there, but it would take 40 minutes by car.
SIDE NOTE: After this encounter, we investigated and there is no such place as the King's Tavern, only the Tavern on Main which fit her description and looked just as trashy as Victory Lane.
Back to the Close Encounter of the Drunken Kind, she proceeded to tell us how all the Blues "greats" got their starts there and went on to name artists that we had never heard of. Apparently, though, she is well versed in the subject because she is a self proclaimed "Bluesy B*tch". She went on to tell me that my mother had her business card and she'd set us up there. This is actually hilarious, because this was Clyde Brown's final show, which she was too hammered to notice.
Throughout the whole "conversation" (she was the only one talking) she kept asking us if we were still in high school and she kept touching my arm. She left with with a pat on the cheek (gross) and a band name, the Blues Brothers (very original). I'll take this moment to point out that there were THREE of us, FOUR members of the actual band, and TWO Blues Brothers. Unbelievable.
Decent food though! read more