Despite being nothing like bluegrass, the monthly Bluegrass Brunch at the Hotel Utah just keeps getting better. While the Afternoon Delight Social Band cranked out music ranging from "Oblique Americana" and urban country to classic honky tonk, the Hotel Utah Saloon has yet to find harmony behind the bar or in the kitchen.
Sunday afternoons are increasingly popular at the Utah, making it hard to find a seat upstairs or down for music, or even a seat at the bar if there's a game on. Unfortunately, management has seen fit to keep the staff levels to one bartender and one cook. The bartender is known for his ridiculously tasty Bloody Marys, and crafts each one from scratch. This however is time consuming and painful for the hoard of people anxious to place drink or food orders as each bloody mary takes about five minutes, and the typical order is for two or four. For the fourth weekend, I witnessed patrons come in, wait patently, and ultimately leave in frustration cursing the place because the service was apparently non-existent. As much as I shared their pain, and was annoyed at the situation myself, I really cannot place any blame at the bartender's muddle. He's charming, patient, mixes a good drink, and as attentive as possible. By now I blame his boss for being to cheap to pay for another bar person when he is clearly overwhelmed by the volume of patrons during the noon-to-three period. I honestly think the lost revenue from pissed off customers who ditch could cover the cost of another person for this shift. The lone kitchen guy could use some help too. (Although the look on his face when confronted with a well-behaved but eager and expectant border collie who had snuck into the kitchen was pretty priceless.)
While the on-stage shows keep getting better and better, with additional country brunches such as Maurice Tani's GSW shows sneaking around the regular third-Sunday honky tonk brunch shows, the kitchen is having less success improving their brunch fare. The usual menu remains, and their burgers and chicken sandwiches remain ever so tasty. The special brunch menu however, keeps changing about. Note I do not say "improving." First, it was the minimal-in-thought and terrible-in-deed
simple menu of toast, eggs, and potatoes. One of the organizers promised us more music and and all-new special brunch menus in the upcoming months. Unfortunately, upon our February return we were faced for an even more restrictive menu of nothing specials and slightly frightening and opted to order from the usual bar menu, and were pleased with the quality of the chicken sandwich and burger—the Utah's bread and butter as it turns out. An hour later we discovered that only one or two of the lucite brunch menu stands had been updated with an all new fancy brunch menu, leaving those of us at the music end of the bar and upstairs with the original, crappy menu. The new menu included items such as shrimp and grits (although I am wary of ordering seafood at the Utah Saloon) and chicken and waffles.
The new menus were hidden amongst the old. We had been foodboozled!
While we were foodboozled from brunch, the bottomless mimosas and the expanded band did more than make up for it and made our cold Sunday afternoon absolutely a Delight.
Added bonus! An appearance from Pretty Pretty Kissy Face, AKA Christie from
A.C.T., who was joining her friends to cheer fellow A.C.T. bartender Tony who was sitting in on drums (Tony tends upstairs, so we'd never met).
Shout to Christie!
The honey tonk scene in the Bay Area is pretty tight, and at times incestuous with interchangeable band members across different groups. The Afternoon Delight Social Band includes my favorites from two other bands, one of which (naturally) is 77 El Deora. While he occasionally sits in with the ADSB, 77 front man Maurice Tani headlines his own irregular country brunch at the Utah called GSW, again, with familiar faces at all the instrument, including the always awesome Mike Anderson on bass, and a special appearance from the B-Stars.
This Sunday we were on the lookout for the new menu, which had changed once again. Gone were the grit-y options, but prominent were the "Chicken and Waffles" and "Bacon Waffle with Apple Compote."
. 
Okay, two quick things: It's chicken and a waffle, singular. Which is appropriate and so the menu item does not need to be in the plural. Secondly, the "Bacon Waffle with Apple Compote" sounds all highfalutin but is just a waffle topped with a strip or two of bacon and what seems like apple pie filling from a jar or perhaps an industrial can. Again, the kitchen was out of many things, but we were able to get our first choice of Chicken and Waffle(s).
Only after our name was hollered to pick up our order did they tell us they were out of syrup.
And butter.
But even so, the chicken was a breaded boneless breast fillet and very tasty without being greasy. The dry waffle complemented it's flavor and it was enough to make us happy. But keep in mind we are generally happy people to begin with, are generally easily amused, and the were there more for the music than the menu. That, and we were refilling our bottomless mimosas in pint glasses, ordering cocktail sides, and permitting the buxom twenty-something marketing girls dressed like whores during Fleet Week give us free sample cups of whatever beer they were peddling.
Boy Howdy that's a fun Sunday brunch.
Behold The Wilson, a reservation-only, password-protected bar hidden inside an already-elusive bar, opening next week at Bourbon & Branch and taking reservations now.
