El Barítono

After a Friday night dinner in the area we decided we wanted to go to a bar with live music. It was a last minute decision. I remembered seeing a large sign from the road advertising what appeared to be a Jazz Bar. It had a large saxophone and said in English «live jazz». We went up to the second floor where the bar was located and we were surprised to find it full. It was about 8pm. We talked with the person at the door and were told it was a special event. We asked for details. He told us it was a singing group that would be singing show tunes. I asked if it was like karaōke because that wasn’t what we were looking for. We were told the bar did have karaōke nights but this wasn’t one of them. They no longer feature any jazz and removed the jazz part of their logo from the signs on the second floor. We decided to stay even though there was a 200 peso per person cover charge, which was incredibly high. We went in ordered drinks and waited for the show to start. We were seated at the edge of the piano bar. The pianos would not be used at all in the upcoming show. It was all recorded music played over a PA system, accompanied by singers with microphones. In about 15 minuets the singing started. It wasn’t professional level entertainment but rather a community group of amateur singers. It was immediately apparent that everyone in the room knew someone in the show. There was even a child singing, his whole family there to support him. We laughed about it, but it wasn’t very good, still we stayed to the end. About half way through the show we tried to order beer. We were told the bar was out of beer, all beer. This was Friday night. This was unbelievable. After the show was over we asked for our check. It took a long time for the server to bring it to us. He told us that on event nights there is a 140 peso minimum per person. We were amazed that he would even bring this up due to the high cover and lack of beverage options. He did tell us that, «they wouldn’t enforce it tonight for us because we hadn’t been able to order beer.» How nice of them… We will not be coming back to this bar. It wasn’t a good experience.