Replay is the new sports bar in Milwaukee, and it’s pretty hard to miss on the corner of Farwell and North. Offering wall-to-wall flat screens, a game room area and ample seating, it sounds perfect for sports lovers. So why do I hate it so much?
First, the service is absolutely derelict. I sat at the bar and waited a full five on a slow day with three bartenders, one of whom I assumed was the owner or manager.
I could overlook that because maybe they didn’t see me (they did), or maybe they were tending to other things (they weren’t). Regardless, I try not to make hasty conclusions several minutes after arrival, so I patiently waited. Our bartender served us some beers and left us to our devices. What I can’t ignore is the fact that it took another five m
inutes to get a refill, and we were waiting to order food as well. Going dry in a bar for a full 10 minutes is the equivalent of waiting at the doctor’s office, where all you want to do is get fixed.
Service is constantly fluctuating in bars, and I might have caught them on a bad day. Still, that’s no excuse, but I try to exercise generosity in these reviews. Where I draw the line is how commercial 
Replay feels. It reminds me more of Brothers than the neighborhood sports bar it claims to be, and Brothers is about as bad as it gets when it comes to cookie-cutter bars pandering to youth, who get so drunk they can’t see the walls of the establishment they’re in (that could be looked at as a win-win scenario, I suppose). The outside looks more like a Cineplex than a bar, its towering corner sign forcing passersby to notice. As if that isn’t enough, smaller signs accompany it, with a catch phrase of “Refuel, Refresh, Replay.” It all seems gimmicky and cheap, the lowest common denominator of capitalism.
The heart of the problem lies in the lack of uniqueness at Replay. When you’re inside, it seems the same as any Buffalo Wild Wings or Applebee’s or TGIFriday’s, places I severely doubt anyone would classify as local bars.
This is a fundamental problem, in my mind, to the bar scene. When new establishments are opening up and tailoring themselves to look more like corporate chains because the chains do so well, the strip mall effect begins to take shape.
But bars are opened for money-making, so why not fashion it after something that is proven to work with American patrons? Because if all new bar owners do that where will the Von Triers and Vituccis’ be? Who will open the new Sugar Maples and County Clares?
Milwaukee was built on independent bars, and it’s what makes this city so truly unique. Independent bar owners shouldn’t throw that away because with it goes Milwaukee itself.
