Magnolia Village Pub
Seattle, WA 98199
Phone: (206) 285-9756
03/25/2008 Posted by t0adman
The VP has changed. The founder & visionary of this fun little Coug bar is long gone & so is some of the energy & care that made it a quality sports bar. The new ownership is fine but the new management is lacking. The VP claims to be a sports bar, & with upwards of 20 large flat panel TVs (all with HD capability) it certainly has great potential. Lack of execution is painfully apparent when you ask them to knowledgably tune the TVs so you can watch multiple games or to make sure they're displaying the HD feed when it's an option. The first round of the Men’s NCAA Basketball tourney was a perfect example. At any given time there are as many as four games on simultaneously & since the VP purchased the March Madness package they get all but the local feed in HD. It required a diligent effort on the part of my friends & me to encourage the staff (particularly the aloof manager who prefers to chat up his cronies instead of attend to customer's needs) to make sure every game was on & in HD. This is despite them having printed out a list of the channels with each game, the game time, & where to find it in HD or SD. Contrast that to another local sports bar where the owner vehemently insists that all of his staff are first trained on how to properly work the TVs before anything else. After all, people are there for SPORTS on TV, then for your drinks & bar food. I'm just grateful that a former manager was in the VP last Saturday & was allowed to control the TVs. Even during the WSU game when Cougs think every TV in the place should be on “their” game, she managed to make sure each of the three other games was on while the current manager ignored the requests of our group – one of the largest over the 3 day period. If you don’t care about the “sports” part of the sports bar then you might love the VP. I prefer to give my money to a bar that takes their claim seriously. Special thanks to Annie for being helpful, selfless & a true sports fan.
Pros: Tons of HD ready TVs, decent fare, good location
Cons: Inept management, lack of focus on sports bar element
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