I'm a Loring Park resident and this place was just "meh". The crowd from the original Armitage location (think Linden Hills) is here in droves. I'm pushing 31and I was the young crowd the night I went: fun 20somethings are very absent there and that includes whenever I ride by, which is quite often. There were a few "yupsters" including some of the staff, but that was as diverse as I had seen it. Yes, it's nice that an empty spot was filled in, but a bar or bar-restaurant catering to LP residents, hello we live here, instead of the see-and-be-seen suburban fringe crowd would be truly refreshing. At least spots like Joe's Garage and Loring Kitchen & Bar attract a more diverse crowd. Just for the record: I do like Grumpy's better between the two, but it's at either the far north end of NE or the other end of Downtown and in that case it might come with a $15 cover on weekends.
A cool bar that offers good cocktails for under $10 and good beer selection geared towards a more eclectic crowd, i.e. way less stuffy than Cafe Maude, can and has been done elsewhere. Loring Park could easily support this untapped niche. I could go to the 19 or Ryan's Pub, but at the former I don't want to get hit on all the time at the only place that has cheap beer outside of happy hour and at the latter, well, it's just a sports pub and I'm not into sports. Cafe Maude just contributes more to the same problem found in the bar scene here: too far on one end of the spectrum or the other, but likely expensive all the same.
