Hey everyone: First off, thank you for participating in our recent Brownstone Community Survey. We’re glad we did it and we received a lot of great feedback (mostly positive, but some negative). Your commitment to us is very appreciated and your ideas and input are crucial to the Brownstone’s success.

Many of you have expressed an interest in seeing the results. Since all of your responses and commentary comes to more than 30 pages, we thought we give you the highlights. And we hope you’ll see that we’ve already seized the initiative on some of your feedback and ideas.

The Results Are In

No Smoking

A significant majority of you were really turned off by the smoking. We get it and we heard you. And especially now that we’re in the thick of a respiratory-based pandemic, we moved smoking outside to the deck. There’s still a sizable number of you that appreciated that we were one of the few, diminishing places where you could have a smoke and a drink. We really appreciate your business and we’ll do our very best to make the deck as a pleasant a place as possible to accommodate you. (Say hi to Karen while you’re out there!)

Bears, Bears, and More Bears

Many of you have expressed an interest in more Bear events. Well starting in August, we’ll be rolling out a monthly Bear Beer Blast on a Saturday afternoon. Working with Capital City Bears, we hope to build it as a fun event to attract the new cubs and hopefully build membership for the group. In addition, we heard you on having “beartenders” on Bear Night and—schedules permitting—we’ll work to have your favorites behind the bar on your special night.

Specialty Drinks

An overwhelming number of you LOVE specialty and seasonal cocktails and you WANT to see them at the Brownstone. In addition, many of you told us that you’re no longer drinking, but you still wanted to have flavorful and fun “mocktail” alternatives to soda and water. Well, DONE and DONE! Have you had a Putin Meets Shakira or a Cool Blue Ginger yet?

We Hear Ya, Ladies

Many of you expressed appreciation for our lesbian night and it’s been so wonderful to see more of you at other events and at regular times at the bar, too. You also told us you’d like to see more lesbian-focused events and some improvement to ladies night. Starting this month, we’ve rebranded our lesbian night to Lady Bar and are moving it to Sunday nights. Our goal is to create a fun, little kiki-style atmosphere for the ladies who love the ladies. In addition, in August we’ll be rolling out a new monthly Saturday afternoon event for the ladies. Stay tuned!

You Guys Have Food???

Based on the survey results, many of you didn’t even realize that we offer food…LOLZ. Well, it wasn’t particularly easy for the bartenders to make and they HATED IT. But we’ve made some investment in our little kitchen and can now make more food—better and faster. We also rebranded our menu. Check it out and grab a bite the next time you’re in.

A New Trans Hangout

We saw amazing support in the survey for an event geared towards our local trans community. Ask and ye shall receive. Introducing our new monthly event: Transtastic! We want to create a fun night out for our trans friends with great music, cocktails, and a fun place to meet new people. Transtastic! will be on the fourth Sunday night of every month. We hope to see you there!

Building & Facilities

So you apparently like our “dive bar chic” approach to decorating; and although our building footprint is what it is, we have heard you on some of the other issues. We recently made our restrooms gender neutral (and even fixed the locks!!). In addition, we have a revamped wood floor, improved ventilation, and spruced up the deck with new flowers, flags, and a fountain. Until social distancing and our capacity limits pass, we can’t really add seating yet. But we promise: we’re thinking about it for when we’re back to normal.

Events + Marketing

You told us you like the wacky, shit show vibe we’ve created at the Brownstone and that you like our approach to outreach. We’ve got a fun newsletter too if you haven’t heard. You can subscribe here. Also, you told us you LOVE fun events and want MORE, MORE, MORE. So stay tuned; we’ve got a few surprises heading your way…

Giving Back

You also made it known that you’ve liked the charity/fundraising efforts that we’ve done and want to see more ways in which you can give back to our community. We hear ya and we’re reaching out to local organizations to do more—especially in the crazy times in which we’re living.

Politics-Free Zone

This one was a little more split down the middle. We appreciate the passion but we feel that we want to keep the Brownstone a safe, little oasis—a place to escape and have a few hours of stress-free fun. We hope you agree.

Thanks Again!

Thanks for the time and effort you gave to the survey. We hope you’ve already noticed some of the changes at the Brownstone and we hope you to keep you guessing about all the fun stuff yet to come. And don’t think you need a survey to tell us your ideas and feedback. Just let us know at the bar or drop us a line here.

See you at the bar!