White Swan

I found this place on craigslist — here is the original ad:
title: LETZ JAM NIGHT 2NIGHT (836 DANFORTH E.)
body: CALLING ALL MUSICIANS, SINGERS, DANCERS ETC. WERE JAMMING TONITE AT THE WHITE SWAN 836 DANFORTH EAST OF PAPE SUBWAY 8;00 TO 12;00 LETZ GET DOWN!
So of course I *had* to check it out.
Tuesday open mic (or ‘jam’ as the ad lists — and the host calls everyone ‘jammers’) was very busy. There is a full house band to play with if you want and when I left at around 1030 it looked like the list had over ten people on it.
Everyone here was a lot older than me. Like… a lot… older. The guy who wrote this ad looked NOTHING like I thought he would (especially after the Danforth Bowl incident). Imagine this guy writing this CL post:
You really don’t need to go here — but — it’s nicer than you would think it is from the weird name and dumpy old-​man-​smoking-​in-​the-​stairwell entrance.
–1 for each of the following:
— online reservations that are not open table
— poor beer selection
— «club like» atmosphere
— people smoking in the front door
— in a basement that feels like it’s in a basement
…but +1 for having an open mic night. Also, they serve chinese food (?). So +1 for that too even though I didn’t try it.