Toronado for sale

Hopefully you wouldn’t have been almost beaten to death in the parking lot for wearing Dodgers gear!

 

My favorite Toronado story is from about 15 or 20 years ago. There was a youngish, heavily tattooed bartender there back then who was from England, I believe, who was particularly surly. I was there for some kind of Firestone night, they had about 15 Firestone beers on.

An innocent looking young guy came up to the bar and said to the bartender, "Can I get a Firestone?"

"Firestone *what*?!"

"Firestone Walker!"

The bartender exploded: "Fuck!! Look at the fucking board, man!!"

The bartender walked off and never served him again.

It's those kind of experiences that create the bad reviews. But in my experience, if you know what you want, order it with no attitude with cash in hand, you'll never have an issue. I love the place, but realize it's not everyone's cup of tea.

 

When I'm going out to have a few beers with some buds I gotta be honest, I'm not looking for an establishment run by a bunch of soup **** bartenders. I understand it's work but having open disdain for your customers seems like a poor business decision. But what do I know? I've never put my brewery up for sale.

 

I don't think it hurt them too much, they've been open for almost 40 years. Also, it's a bar.

Tornado is an old school sf hipster type place. Haight isn't much of a hipster neighborhood anymore and craft beer is downright mainstream, so the vibe is probably gonna have to shift a bit. I've only been a couple times, it was always fine service and a great beer list.

 

Maybe I think this way because I’m older now, but wouldn’t it be just as easy to say “we have 15 of their beers listed on the board, which one?”

I guess I don’t understand why it’s so upsetting that someone who doesn’t spend 1/2 their life at the bar like an employee does, doesn’t realize that you have something special going on. In fact, most people enjoy informing others of new things.

 

It used to be the hipster record stores where employees showed open disdain for normie customers, but those stores mostly went away. Then it was hipster beer bars where you could see/get that treatment, but those are also mostly gone. Where can a normie go to get ridiculed these days?

 

High end coffee shops can be pretty brutal. And I don't think that indie book stores have ever stopped with the open disdain.

 

I’ve seen the combo deal. A high-end coffee shop inside a record store. Plenty of ridicule available for everyone.

 

All I wanted was a pumpkin spiced Frappuccino and a Spotify gift card, I don't know why they were such jerks!

 

The internet.

 

I think this story, and countless others like it, were symptoms of a certain time and place in craft beer culture that has long since passed. But I'm glad to have experienced it, for better or for worse.

 

I haven’t experienced this there. But to me, the worst thing a person can do while they are at work is give off the attitude to a customer that they are inconveniencing them. Some people are just curmudgeons and all one can do is just brush that shit aside.l and move on. As you can tell by the thread what I made about my experiences selling beer, I actually preferred newbs. It was more fun to try find out what might be best for them and then trying to hit a bullseye with my recommendation. To have someone come in later and tell me that they liked what I recommended was neat!

 

I'm with you, I never understand the thing about being bothered by newbs as an employee. I love introducing people to stuff they're interested in and I know about.

Now, the aggressively opinionated and ignorant neck beards would drive me completely insane.

 

Grew up in the Bay Area and have been a beer fan for a long time, but never made it. Life happens.

 

If you're still in the area its worth a little pilgrimage.

I wouldn't drive 3 hours to visit. But I'd make it part of a day in the city if I lived within an hour. It's a real piece of modern craft beer history. Opened in the late 80s and has been instrumental in the growth of California craft beer.

 

Try your employers IT professional.

 

Classic Toronado experience last weekend for me. I've been going there since 2009, but only 3-4 times per year since I live in the East Bay and HATE going into the city, so not enough to build up any kind of rapport with the staff. I brought a friend who's an experienced beer geek but had never been to Toronado. I explained to him how the bartenders had always gotten a bad rap because they wouldn't take any crap from newbs and jerks but he would be fine as long as he was a normal person. Lol. Well... after our first beer, things got a little busy. We waited at the bar for about 10 minutes while a bunch of other people got served who walked up after us. Finally we both decided to flag down the bartender... I should've known better. He yelled "I SEE THE EMPTY GLASSES, YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAVE!" We both sheepishly apologized and acknowledged our faux pas. I told him it was good that happened because he got the legit Toronado experience.

I freaking love that place. Hopefully nothing changes.

 

I'm in SF next week, going to try to make a last visit.

Do we know yet when shutdown errrr sale is expected?