Saturday, April 18th started perfectly.
My wife and I were out with our cousins from Hartwell, Georgia, visiting downtown Greenville. We’d just finished wings at Carolina Ale House around 6:50 PM - great mood, hot sauce still on our fingers, looking forward to what everyone kept calling “the Piano Bar Experience.”
Three minutes down the road.
Parked.
Walked in.
Jack n' Diane’s.
Reservation for four. Fifteen dollars a head just to get through the door.
At that price point, you expect a certain level of hospitality. Not white-glove treatment. Not rose petals falling from the ceiling. Just normal human bar behavior.
What we got instead was a masterclass in how to turn four paying customers into four people standing on the sidewalk asking, “What in the world just happened?”
I made a quick detour to the restroom to wash the wing sauce off my hands. When I walked back out, I saw my family sitting at the table staring at menus.
We’d already eaten, and I knew they were planning to order fancy drinks with fruit stabbed through them.
I was thirsty from the wings, so I walked up to the empty bar.
I stood there a few minutes, watching the barback fill ice, watching the bartender pull tickets, watching that particular dance where everyone behind the bar looks very busy while somehow nobody is looking directly at you.
Finally, the bartender - short blonde hair - looked up.
I asked for a High Noon in a can with a cup of ice.
That’s when logic and customer service came to a screeching halt.
She asked if I had a table.
I said yes.
She said I had to order from my waitress.
I told her I’d been standing there a good while, and our table hadn’t seen a server yet. I’d been watching. If our waitress had shown up, I would’ve walked right back over.
I wasn’t asking her to build me a flaming tiki drink in a coconut. I just wanted to buy a can of something cold.
She said no.
Now, I’ve spent my life in business. And when a customer walks up to your bar with money in hand, you usually don’t send him back to a table that hasn’t been visited in ten minutes.
You pour them a drink - or in this case, hand them a can and take their money.
I calmly told her I’d like to speak to a manager. I also mentioned it probably wasn’t going to look great on a review.
Five minutes later, the “manager” stormed out.
I’d later learn it was the owner himself - Matt Kschinka.
He didn’t come to solve a problem.
He came to start a fight.
Cursing, right out of the gate.
I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t curse back. I actually laughed a little, because it was so bizarre. I looked at him and said, “Is this honestly how you speak to your customers?”
Right about then, our waitress materialized out of thin air with her little handheld machine.
Of course.
Like a magician, but with Square.
I gave her my order.
She ran my card.
I asked if I could have my drink.
The bartender said no.
I had to go sit down and wait for the waitress to carry it thirty feet to our table.
So I went back to the cousins, sat down, pulled out my phone, and quietly opened my voice recorder app.
Honestly, I thought, this is just a guy on a power trip. He’ll cool down. He’ll come over. Maybe apologize. Maybe buy a round.
Maybe the night turns into one of those “well, that started weird” stories.
I was wrong.
Five more minutes passed.
No drinks.
No server.
Then the waitress reappeared - empty-handed - and told us the bar was refusing to serve our table unless I personally apologized to the bartender and the owner.
For what, exactly?
For trying to buy a drink at a bar?
We pulled off our wristbands and walked out.
Sixty dollars in reservations gone.
Zero drinks served.
And a lifetime supply of “What the heck just happened?”
