staff major drawback. my first impression of twigs was the hostess with her backside facing the entrance door wearing skin-tight, umm, tights with her ass in all of our faces. and yeah, wearing black tights stretched so tight over one's ample bottom may be perfectly appropriate for the gym or going out dancing or somewhere a bit more appropriate for women trying to garner such attention than a restaurant. i'm a fairly young, liberal guy so it's not like i'm opposed to the female form, but when i go to a restaurant i'd prefer the buns were limited to my hamburgers and the hostess not seeming to trying to advertise the clam dish every time she walks by. the fact that she wasn't the only one, and that another female server was also wearing black tights (though thankfully with an apron in front), makes me think it's not a one-off mistake, but acceptable practice at twigs, but one i find tacky (at best) and offensive (at worst).
thankfully our waiter was a guy and his pants weren't skin tight, because i wasn't ready for him to put new emphasis on the name twigs (and berries). he was, however, sort of incompetent. when asked what we'd like to drink, my companion ordered a drink, and i said i wanted water with lemon. he then proceeded to basically dismiss me by saying 'yeah, i'm going to bring out waters' before asking if we wanted anything else to drink (read as: any of the overpriced cocktails, but more on that later). when our drinks came out, there was no lemon in my water. i considered this a minor oversight until other aspects of our order came out incorrectly, often slow, often trying to flag him down as he passes and he doesn't even notice.
the cocktails weren't bad, but weren't sogoodi was comfortably paying 8+ dollars for them. part of the problem is having worked in the liquor industry so knowing how cheap alcohol is (relatively). i know, i know, a martini is supposed to be about the taste and experience, not to get drunk, but still having what seemed like barely a shot of mid-grade liquor for 8 bucks and the drink better be amazing so i can justify paying for the expertise of the bartender, which, i dunno, none of their drinks seemed all that awe inspiring. my companion ordered a huckleberry mojito that literally, when settled, had inches of mint on the bottom of the glass. my companion didn't like it (at all), and it wasn't too terrible so i ended up drinking it, but it was so cluttered with mint that it was a bit off putting. at one point i was fishing mint out of the glass with a fork to keep myself from chocking on it, as it was like having a salad in my drink, and our waiter made a joke about it and impatiently waited until i was done so he could take our plate, but never once clued in and asked if the drink was acceptable or not (nor when we ordered a second and third drink and had left the mojito going untouched on the table). the non-mint laden drinks were good, i guess, but shrug, nothing i'd come back for specifically.
food: i was indecisive and got a hamburger. yet another hamburger in spokane claiming quality meat and ending up so tasteless as to be confusing. have i just lost the ability to taste hamburger? is it something in my own mouth that is making every one of the 'gourmet' hamburgers i've had in this town be tasteless and almost mushy in my mouth? there's got to be a place in town with a decent burger... it's not like boise is the mecca of ground beef or something, but i could rattle off a list of omg-that's-good burgers in boise, and keep striking out in spokane, and it's getting weird.
the ambiance and crowd was interesting. sports bar type of area, as well as a pretty classy dining area. the menu was similar divided, ranging from pub food to what i imagine they think is high-class dishes, but with pizza thrown in. some folks dressed up for a nice dinner, a guy wearing a get-r-done camo hat, people clearly on dates, some families with kids. it was sort of all over the place in an unpleasant way where everyone seems to be there for vastly different reasons, so you talking with friends seems inappropriate as the quiet date-night couple, as the loud family-night family, as the sports-bar watching crowd, etc.
overall, the food seemed overprice, over-hyped and mediocre. the drinks seemed okay, but not sogoodyou don't start thinking about the cost of liquor. the service was pretty bad, with two too many tights stretched over women's asses along with generally slow, inaccurate service). it seemed like twigs is really trying hard to be trendy and cater to a variety of people, but you shouldn't have to try so hard and at some point a restaurant needs something that defines it (other than women's asses on display! yeah, still can't get over how tacky it was).
to me it just seemed like yet another establishment that thinks their job is done because they've created a trendy atmosphere and menu with highly charged language. but at some point basic things likegoodservice and tasty food become the important things, and bleh. not to mention having a varied menu is great, but at some point it felt like maybe they spread themselves too thin, which often indicates to me a restaurant isn't sure what they want to be known for or what they're evengoodat, and as such everyone in the place seemed to be trying it for the first time. but what's the demographic of loyal return customers going to actually be? not me, that's for sure.