🏳️🌈 Friends of Dorothy cocktail lounge in Victoria BC highkey SUCKS ngl
So this was a destination outing for my girlfriend’s slightly normier married friends who live in the outer burbs, and looking back at the photos on Gmaps that I screenshotted for reference before going, I should have realized that that’s the whole vibe. This isn’t a queer bar, this isn’t even a gay bar. It’s a gay-themed bar.
Briefly: the prices are not gay-friendly. The cocktails specifically feel like an insult to gayness. The only way this is redeemable is if it’s a self-conscious put-on designed to attract straight dollars.
It’s hard to drag a place that hosts drag these days, though. This was at the door:
Someone’s mad. Took me a while to work out that “abu mi watio” actually means “abomination.” I’m a bigger fan of “EVIL DEED,” that’s so punchy.
Leaving aside my qualms about being on the side of whoever our graffiti warrior is, let me diagram my complaints for you:
Immediately, I have to question the message any time someone is branding with Marie Antoinette.
Are we as patrons being shamed for our decadence in being here at all? Don’t worry! I can’t afford you! Even worse, is it some kind of Elder Gay entrepreneur joke being had at the expense of the Queer Community in concept as a whole? It bugs me TF out. What’s the memo?
Anyway, the pictures on Gmaps must all be taken with wide-angle lenses. The place seems much smaller in person. We were seated in the bar service area and the whole room felt cramped.
Anyway that stuff might be ignoreable, but here are my two main, substantial gripes: the cocktails are too expensive and yet not uniformly fanciful enough (I feel like the menu promises they’ll be uniformly fanciful), and the portions on some menu items are disgraceful.
Regarding the cocktails:
I love this, in concept. Except the prices are painful. Painful. We obviously missed happyhour.
Importantly, what I’m getting from this cocktail menu is, each of these drinks will actually scream its ROY G BIV-sake at you, possibly to a tongue-staining extent. Like, you order a green beer on St. Patrick’s and it is green, right? Simple shit! I notice now for the first time that the drinks aren’t specifcally in any known rainbow order, either. We’re working with “ROYY GBI L(ilac) V”, here.
I ordered the Emerald City, fully expecting it to be a vivid jeweltone green.
USE FOOD COLOURING THEN, FFS. Pus yellow?! “The Emerald City”?!?!
Admittedly my gf’s buddy ordered The Winged Monkey and it was actually bright blue. So like they DO understand their own premise.
Anyway, someone could say, I just needed to adjust my expectations. For nearly $20 a drink I better not have to. Frankly.
Speaking of expense, this was $24:
This is what I get for ordering meat. I could have had the fries on their own for half the cost. And I would have been SO MUCH happier as a customer if I had! The aioli was a winner but I was so mad about the “steak bites.”
This is “as rare as they can make it.”
“Rare.”
I’m sorry but, personally I picture between (minimum) five to eight stewing/souvlaki sized chunks when I see “steak bites” on a menu. So from that perspective this just seems like someone trying to get away with something. The whole experience left me feeling fucked over.
Let me just conclude with this:
Fuck you FOD. This cost me $50 after tip. For ONE person! And I was disappointed!
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?! That you’re doomed?? Doomed like Marie Antoinette??
LOWER YOUR DRINK PRICES.