I hate having to write a bad review about Jack's because it used to be my favorite restaurant in Baltimore. However, last night 6 friends and I went there for someone's birthday. We made a reservation for 7:30, but didn't end up being sat until nearly 9. While we were waiting we ordered two bottles of wine at the bar. The hostess apologized multiple times, but said she couldn't do anything to make the tables leave even though one of them had been sitting with a paid check for over an hour. Finally, someone from our party politely asked the table to move to bar. We were comped a $24 bottle of crappy champagne that we didn't even order for our hour and a half wait. Really? That cost Jack's like $7 in wholesale price (as a former bartender I know the mark up). I feel like we should have at least had our wine comped because we wouldn't have ordered it if we hadn't been waiting for over an hour to eat. Out table ended up spending over $500 total. Easily we could have been given a free dessert or app. I won't be going back to Jack's for a special event anytime soon because apparently making a reservation doesn't really count for anything.

That said, the food was amazing as usual. And once we sat, the service was great. It was too bad that the hour and a half wait left us with a bad experience. Furthered by the fact that the restaurant acknowledged the bad experience and then cheaped out on the make up.

My friends and I went to V-NO on a Wednesday night for HH and ended up spending over 3 hours there. We went through 4 bottles of wine, two cheese plates and two truffle plates and only spent about $20 a person for 5 people (not to shabby). The Desiree chocolate wine was divine! The owner, Mark, was social and helpful, but not over-attentive, which was awesome because there weren't a lot of people there. I love the concept of separating the wines by taste instead of type and the fact that the bottles on the wall all have written descriptions about them. It's fun to pick a bottle off the wall and drink it right there. Great place, more people need to know about it.

I think this place has THE best dance party in Baltimore. Cheap beer and and a DJ spinning ridiculously awesome music. Great crowd too. It's full of people not a afraid to dance however they feel and there's none of that ass-grinding that seems to be so popular (well not much of it). My friends and I always dance our faces off.