philly

Ortlieb's Jazzhaus has been an Philadelphia institution since I was still eating dirt on the playground. I've wanted to go to it since we first moved down here three summers ago and I finally went to the legendary shack on Friday night. It was a great night of music, but holy shit was it an annoying experience otherwise.

Let me start off by saying that the performers were amazing. The performers were called M'oudswing, a Moroccan jazz band. I've never heard such a sound before. A traditional jazz setup of drums, piano, sax and stand up bass plus an oud, which looks sort of like a mandolin. Apparently it was the first night that the rest of the band had ever played with the sax player. I didn't catch whether or not it was a new band member or if he was filling in for the night. Whatever the reason, they sounded great together. There were songs with oud intros which gave the pieces a distinctive Middle Eastern feel to them which dissolved well into the more familiar jazz sound I'm used to. And there were songs where the oud was brought in seamlessly into pieces, making its presence known with its distinctive sound, but not overpowering nor competing with the other instruments.

But now on to the rest of the experience. We arrived at the club around 8.30p or so for the 8.45p start of the show. We were greeted by a lady inside the door with a pink and sparkly [now closed] Silk City shirt. She informed us that there was a $10 cover charge for the night. We were not aware of this. There was no mention of a cover charge on their website according to the organizer of our outing nor the ad in the alt weeklies when I checked earlier that evening. Before we were seated, we were told that there was a $10 minimum, per person, for food between 8p and 10p. I don't recall ever going to a place that had a minimum food order and a cover charge, usually it's one or the other. For reference, I'm using NYC comedy clubs which do one or the other from my experience.

I understand why they're there. It pays for the space plus a little bank for the performers. I'm not saying I'm against it, just that I've never been to a place with both mandates in place.

We were seated right behind the piano player's section of the stage [the far end from the door]. I opened up the menu to take a look at what they had to offer food wise and immediately saw in big letters that an 18% gratuity would be added to all parties. I'm used to seeing the mandatory gratuity on parties of six or more at restaurants, but never for any sized group. I'm the type of person who normally gives a 20% tip for decent service, but really hate being told to caugh it up automatically. I also understand that there is low turnover for a place which is set up for a five-hour set by a jazz band and that the 18% will assure that each server will make a decent amount of money off of each table, but there are other ways to make money than make patrons automatically pay an above average ("average" being 15%) amount for tip. Most places will jack up prices of food. You're not paying more off the bat for the service which can be rewarded later with a fat tip. I understood this while going to comedy clubs in NYC, paying $5 for a Snapple and $8 for a plate of 50¢ defrosted mozzarella sticks.

So we ordered. I got the pulled pork sandwich which was slathered with BBQ sauce. It was nice and juicy without being overly sloppy. I managed to keep my white t-shirt clean. No complaints on mine. One of my friends asked if she could substitute spicy fries instead of the normal fries which came with her sandwich. She was told it would be a $2 charge to swap the fries. On the menu, the normal [larger] order of spicy fries was a mere $1.50 more than the normal order of plain fries, why the additional 50¢ to swap out a smaller portion of fries?

But the stupidest part of the night… One of my friends ordered the cheese lover quesadilla which was supposed to come with spinach, red onions, red peppers, black beans and goat cheese. It came sans cheese. Lady noted later on that a quesadilla without the cheese is just a 'dilla! I guess getting a cheese lovers quesadilla and it arriving with no cheese at all is like ordering a meat lovers pizza and receiving a tomato pie. Our server asked if my friend would like a side of cheese. A side of cheese? It's supposed to be all melted into the inside! It would totally not be the same. She said no.

It was September 29th and a vent right under our table was blowing air which was cold enough to freeze Lady's lip balm. It was a nice crisp fall evening, not nearly hot enough to crank the AC like that. Or if it wasn't the AC and just a crazy and steady draft, they gotta get that checked out. It was ridiculous.

Towards the end of the meal after we ordered our desserts, one of my dinner partners ordered a Dewars on the rocks with a twist of lemon. Not my bag, but whatever. I didn't think much of it, until we got our bill. She was charged 50¢ for the fucking ice. The last item on the bill read: "1 ROCKS ….. $0.50" I looked at it dumbfounded. Do they really have the balls to charge for three ice cubes? Oh yes. And the 'dilla was on the bill at full price with no adjustment by our server for it coming out completely wrong. You'd think that they'd mark down the item, but no. When I called our server over to ask what exactly the "rocks" charge was and why the price of the 'dillas wasn't adjusted, he explained that all drinks "on the rocks" had that 50¢ charge and that he had offered to bring out a side of cheese to rectify the 'dilla order. I looked incredulously at him and just handed him the check silently. I couldn't believe this fucker.

Ortlieb's gets some seriously good acts passing through its beat down doors and under that gigantic bison head. But the people are obviously not coming for the service. It's a shame though. I went to Zanzibar Blue a couple years ago with some co-workers while I was at Philadelphia Weekly and had a great time. It's a more upscale experience, but everything was what I expected, no hidden costs at all. I haven't been to Warmdaddy's for music, only been inside to take a look at the space. I've walked by Chris' Jazz Cafe a million times, but have never walked inside.

I'm not going to be returning to Ortlieb's. It's stupid too. I'm doing it for spite and on principal. Shit. If they had simply charged my friend $6 for the drink and not $5.50 plus 50¢ for ICE and taken a few bucks off of a fucked up order of quesadillas, I wouldn't be so mad. It's stupid shit like this that I really fucking hate. Tiny little things that I can't let go. It's just bullshit. It's bullshit because it's so easily fixed, but no. So, they won't be seeing my money.

I imagine if I had brought my camera along with me to take some photos, they would've made me caugh up a few hundred bucks in royalty fees for potential sales down the line.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 @ 12:13 am. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or trackback from your own site. Your comments will be moderated [if you have never previously commented] but will appear as soon as humanly possible.