Jayne's Restaurant Review Copper Blues Live Restaurant by L. A. Keller
There's a new dance club/restaurant/comedy club in town and I love it. Copper Blues Live (also known as CB Live) opened at the Desert Ridge Marketplace in north Phoenix. If you look up the name don't be confused with another place similarly named that is in downtown Phoenix.
There are two sides to the establishment so make sure you know whether you are going to the comedy club or the restaurant. I recently visited with three girlfriends on a Saturday night. Luckily, we had a table reserved for 6 pm and were seated promptly. This place doesn’t fill up until later and I heard a rumor that there is a line out of the door on certain nights. Once the comedy show is over, a wall opens between the two and there’s lots of tables.
We started with wine and cocktails. Two of us had the delicious and refreshing Champagne Supernova and fought the urge to gulp it down too quickly. Wine options were standard for a bar but good.
For dinner we went crazy and had the Nachos with chicken, Chicken Wings, Pretzel Bites, Copper (loaded) Fries and the Brussel Sprouts. My friends loved the wings, but I preferred the Nachos. Serving sizes are perfect for sharing among several people. On this trip no one ordered a ‘real’ dinner, but I definitely will in the future. The food was good and nothing out of the ordinary for a bar. You can enjoy a meal and music without breaking the bank.
On this occasion, there was a single musician early in the evening who was great followed by a popular local band around 9 pm. There isn’t much room to dance but that didn’t stop us from moving to the music in between tables and squeezing to the front by the main bar.
This is a fun unpretentious spot with a neighborhood feel. You can take your kids for the early part of the evening, get a sitter and see a comedy performance or boogie to the beat.
However, there is one issue which is major – service is poor. The servers, mostly young women in scanty outfits, are not trained. They forget drinks, forget food orders, don’t refill water or drinks promptly and in general don’t seem to care. The problem with this type of establishment is they rely too heavily on the bar crowd not caring about service but that is a recipe for failure. Servers need to be professional and well trained in the menu and drinks. Simply looking sexy won’t keep diners coming back, even if the band is great. This way of doing business may have worked a long time ago but it doesn’t work today where there are more places to go than you can fit into a year. Bad service can close a restaurant’s doors faster than anything short of a health inspection.
I will absolutely give this place another chance to see if service improves and to taste some of the other options on the menu. But if it fails the second time, then I will only go to catch the music and have a basic cocktail that doesn’t require much expertise.
CBLive
Remember to always drink responsibly and tip your bartender and servers.
Happy Dining,
Jayne
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