Brothers Lounge

Well it was a long quiet week for me here due to the passing of my old friend Gilly.  So in that I kind of lost my voice for a bit there more or less.  However early in the week we headed over to The Brothers Lounge over on Detroit in Cleveland.  A long time mastermind of Cleveland Bar Management took over the joint by the name of John Golubic.  John has been the man behind quite a few successful restaurants and bars.  He has a knack for thinking outside of the box and his promotion style is unique.  He has run the Ironwood Cafe in its heyday, took over the Sunset Grille and turned it into the Summer yacht rock party mecca and now he is over at Brothers to work similar magic. 

I had issues with Brothers previously for a couple of reasons.  The first is the whole parking thing which there is pretty much nothing you can do about.  It is not their fault the place is jumping on the weekends.  The second was the whole bar over the band thing.  The bands I thought were second to the crowd.  No one was really there to listen to the bands they were more there to drink and talk.  So at times I would get annoyed a bit.  On a personal level I'd like to see them open it up to more than the blues thing too which they seem to have been doing but get out of that cover band mode.  I guess you need to cater to the crowd though and to get bodies in the door most folks want to see something like a Journey cover band over some of the folks that play at the Beachland, Grog or Happy Dog.  However a once a month Cleveland showcase would be nice.

Tuesday is sushi night and they do sushi pretty damn good.  We had the Cajun Blues Sliders as well which were awesome.  Little mini-burgers cooked to order with blue cheese and some spice.  So how is a Blues bars sushi?  It was actually pretty decent.  The shrimp tempura ones were the best of the bunch, simple, and full of flavor.  Tempura battered shrimp, avocado and masago.  The dynamite roll was pretty good too with spicy tuna, salmon and avocado.  The Brothers roll was just kind of meh however the biggest of the rolls and the most expensive clocking in at $8.00 (the others are quite a deal at $5).  It was crab, wasabi, mayo, lettuce, avocado and cucumber.  The crab tasted off kind of gamey.  It could have been canned or it might have been fresh shredded, no idea but it the crab overpowered any of the other flavors.  Presentation was what you would expect at a sushi joint.  It all looked amazing.  They have an extensive beer list and a decent happy hour.  The service as well was spot on, exceptional, knowledgeable and friendly. 

To even say Brothers Lounge conjures up fears to folks who have not been in years.  It used to be a dump.  I mean a huge dump.  As in junkies, and whores dump.  I used to play darts there years ago when I was in a league with friends and there was always something questionable going on there.  Well, the remodel they did on it was amazing.  The only thing that is the same is the name.  However while not the white glove Disneyland of the House of Blues it is very clean.  At times too clean especially for those of us who have been to the old Brothers.  I don't know how to explain this because it is stupid but it's almost too sterile.  It's like the scene in Slap Shot when they start smacking the bus with sledgehammers to make it look mean.  I want something in there to look rock and roll however a lot of it comes over as Applebees.  So, if being too clean is a bad thing they lose, but I am probably 1 in 5,000 who would even think that so what do I know?  I just like my music clubs to have a little bit of grit to them.  However, Golubic + good food + excellent service + solid entertainment = ???.  We shall see in the upcoming months how Johnny G makes things happen.  I have faith things are going to at the very least get interesting at Brothers.