Yes we are twenty years from 1990 so technically there is nothing wrong with having a nostalgic look back at that era especially when considering the increasingly lazy and disturbingly transfixed nature of popular culture with all things past. However if you are to call yourself Remeniss 90’s Bar — and the date is particularly important to your identity — then people don’t expect much from you except to possibly know your history and have a little authenticity. I wasn’t expecting a classy place, nor a decent selection of beers but I’m pretty sure that Lionel Ritchie’s Dancing on The Ceiling was released in the 1980s? I couldn’t care if the place smelled like stale beer and was full of some of the worst dancing known to modern man, these aren’t reason’s to put you off coming to such a place. But when The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The La’s and Pulp are missed out in favour of Luther Van Dross, well sir, this isn’t the 90s I remember.
Dave L.
Place rating: 2 Liverpool, United Kingdom
There’s something inherently tacky about the idea of a nineties bar. I doubt there’s anyway you could make it sound like a good idea without simultaneously sounding like the kind of person who says ‘OHEMGEEGURLFRIEND!’ in what can only be described as ‘voice capitals’. For reasons that would baffle me if I ever suspected they existed, Reminiss feels like its trying to bypass its own premise by rarely playing anything from the 1990s. In their mind, it counts as a nineties hit if the singer was alive then. I’m sure that’s not how themed bars work, surely? Little more than a bare dancefloor next to an awkwardly-placed bar, Reminiss is oddly boring for such a loud place. Even drunk I couldn’t bring myself to dance like an eejit so I stood at the bar, exchanging weary gazes with the equally weary barman as every fibre of me ached to leave. Despite the fact he was being paid and I was pouring money away like a cash-hose, that man knew he was worse off than me. I pity him.
Dom M.
Place rating: 2 Liverpool, United Kingdom
I’d love to completely slate this place but the fact of the matter was that I had a very funny night in here. Obviously anywhere that is illiterate in its own door title isn’t going to be the best regular or peak destination — particularly in a place with as much choice as Liverpool. All the same, the décor is pretty flimsy, prices are average and most of the customers appear to have stumbled in under confusion rather than handpicked it as their first choice. Music seems to range but didn’t stick entirely with the 90’s theme adding more to the confusion, the location is one of the few good things going for Remeniss as it is a bit of a hot spot for drunken groups on random walks around town. All in all, not the best certainly, and not quite the worst. Well ok, almost the worse.
Rebecca C.
Place rating: 1 Liverpool, United Kingdom
Everything about this place screams«WRONG» at me. Firstly, did they intend to spell ‘reminisce’ wrongly or are they just stupid? I’m inclined to go with the latter, as the bar doesn’t seem to be very well thought out at all. Bare inside and with a bar on one wall containing staff that don’t quite know what they’re doing yet, it is a little dire. And this is me speaking without even freaking out that the 90s are now thought of as ‘old’. Mathew Street has unfortunately become a magnet for hen parties and the like, and the girls especially seem to love this place because they can twirl the night away on what seem to be a vast, empty dancefloor. Its only redeeming feature is the music, but then I wouldn’t bother going in just for that.