Kip’s Bar and Grill

I’m leaving this review as a recent performer at Kips. I DJed a private event here and had a pretty bad experience. Upon arrival, there was nobody around to assist me with any kind of sound check. The one person who seemed to be in charge up and left when there were some difficulties saying “I don’t know” and storming away, leaving me to scramble through their audio equipment and cables (all of which was extremely dirty and sticky) to figure out how to make THEIR sound system work. It was very chaotic. The inside was hot, sweaty with 0 ventilation and 1 fan. The cherry on top was the staff member who came backstage to flirt with a couple of guests I brought with me, making sexual jokes, physical advances, and being completely inappropriate towards all of us. He made us very uncomfortable and we had to ask him multiple times to leave us alone. It shocks me that college aged students attend a place where staff behave like this, I can only pray this was a one time incident. The same unhelpful staff from earlier proceeded to shut the event down early, harshly cutting all power and corrupting my USB drive by doing so. This was by far one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had as a DJ a

easily the best bar in berkeley when a lot of people go. great dancing and great drink deals on Tuesdays too

Went to Kip's to watch G.S. WARRIORS game. Ordered Pineapple Fish bowl to share, Western burger and 5 tacos on Tuesday night. The burger came out first, 45 minutes after we ordered it. Having inquired about our drink, she admitted to forgetting to place drink order. 5 minutes later, we finally get our libation. She charges $35 for the drink, when they were on special for $25. Apparently the "special " had ended at 8pm. It was now 830. I explained that we ordered the drink well before 8 and were forced to suffer from dry mouth for way too long. Too bad, so sad. Shortly thereafter, my tacos arrived. Lots of screens, upbeat vibe, good food, and billiards are enough to return. Service and reconciliation difficult to attain.

If you're going to be here when music is playing, wear earplugs. I went here about two years ago and it was so absurdly loud that it gave me tinnitus I'm still dealing with to this day.

Kips is EXTREMELY HOMOPHOBIC and severely unsafe for women. A man was fetishizing my two friends for dancing together because they’re both women. We asked him 5 separate times to stop staring at two women dancing and he refused. A Kip’s security guard (Jo) watched the whole interaction and didn’t intervene until my 5’2” friend lightly pushed the (6 foot tall) perv away. Then he kicked our entire group out of the bar for being “aggressive.” He didn’t care when a man was making two sapphic women feel unsafe and only intervened to “protect” a straight man fetishizing patrons. Jo (the security) put his hands on my friend’s waist to forcibly push her out of the bar. He was touching her much more than necessary and not allowing us to discuss the situation, Jo exclusively yelled in our faces and pushed us. We asked to talk to a bar tender or manager and Jo would not speak to us and pushed us bodily out of the bar. Jo said “two women dancing is provocative, you can’t get mad when someone looks” which is blatantly queer-phobic and misogynistic (Jo had no issue with the straight couple literally two feet away dancing significantly more provocatively so it was clearly a comment on two women