‘t Wiel

I went here with a whole bunch of my colleagues — we have a new VP @ my place of work and so he hosted an after-​work drink event here.
Firstly, if you are driving here, there is heaps of parking space available in front of this bar, and we parked like 10 mins away, and it was a freezing walk to get here, only to realize could have parked heaps closer. Secondly, do not, even if you are desperate, do NOT order the hot chocolate from this place.
Maybe it was my foolishness, as this is a bar, and hence anything alcoholic is what I should have ordered, but I didn’t want to drink and thought hot chocolate would be a safer option — I was SO wrong. The hot chocolate is not freshly made, and instead comes from a packet, it was watery and tasted cheap so avoid getting this at all costs! The only slight saving grace to my first drink might have been the accompanying Italian rolled wafer biscuit, but whatever brand this bar stocks, I found it was really sweet and so my system got another unexpected sugar rush.
So having wizened up after my disappointing first selection, I decide to break down and got a Kriek instead, as that was the only sweet beer on tap. I was hopping this bar would stock a wider range of Lindemans, which is my favorite Belgium beer company due to their awesome selection of sweet beers, but the cherry variety was the only one available.
By the way, the space of this bar is deceptive, as the front is fairly compact, with like only about 4 – 5 tables, but there is a back room that is huge and on this occasion was reserved for us. The ambience is a bit old school, as the overhead speakers blared out a lot of hard core 70s and 80s music. The front room also has x3 pinball machines, but those didn’t see any use that I observed the evening I was there. Also the bartender wasn’t that great about replenishing our beer nuts and nibbles — it was only a small selection of two per table that he served at the beginning of ten evening, distributed across the three tables, but that was it.
Another thing worth mentioning, if you are of the female gender and wish to use the rest room — be aware that there are open urinals you have to walk through to get to the toilet stalls and so u might just want to be cautious when opening the restroom door. Finally the coat racks are located just outside the restroom doors and then were only 5 hooks, so those got filled up fast.
My overall conclusion is that it seems like a nice neighborhood pub /​bar space and there was a good local crowd. I might probably go back, but then again I might not, hence the three stars!