St. Albert’s newest lounge and sports bar is poised to attract guests with casual, smart attire and a taste for refined liquors.
The Bourbon Room in Campbell Business Park seeks to fill a void in St. Albert's bar scene, providing upscale drinks in a mix of cozy lounge and dance club atmosphere.
“I think we are the only lounge in town,”' says owner Paul Ballach. “We are the only place that has a dance floor, the only place that goes from being a lounge and sports bar that turns into a night club on the weekend.”
Ballach says he used a lot of “beer science” when planning the interior.
That included measuring how far a chair moves if its occupant jumps up due to sports-induced excitement and having soft toilet paper in the bathroom stalls. Even the sound system was installed to keep louder noise confined to the dance floor.
Half of the 5,000-square-foot establishment is comprised of a dance floor, two pool tables, a couch and tables for two.
The bar serves the other half, where the lounge area is. Here, along the dark windows that keep people from looking inside, sit cozy, leathery booths. The middle of the room is taken up by long wooden tables with high chairs.
All seats provide a good view of one of seven wall-mounted television screens, which serve up every sport fans could want, whether it be hockey, football or top UFC bouts.
Those more interested in a drink will find their thirst quickly quenched by the short-skirted waitresses – one of which Ballach frequently refers to as being a former Playboy model.
“We have a rule, the three-minute rule that when a customer gets approached, acknowledged, sat down, and has his order taken he will have a drink in hand in three minutes,” he says.
“We call it the first drink guarantee.”
The beers come ice-cold in frosted glasses, and the martinis, bourbons and mason-jar cocktails are made from “upscale” liquors, he says, proudly adding that he serves all of his drinks in glassware, not plastic.
He even has a special device called the Bourbon Bomber, designed to carry four regular and four shot glasses and drop the shots into the drink by pushing down on top of the device.
The Bourbon Room's drink menu includes $4 highballs, $6 beer, $11 martinis and cocktails (two ounces), $22 shots of bourbon and a bottle of Cristal Champagne worth about $300.
Ballach even brought in a wine consultant from Edmonton. To accommodate different palates, the lounge now offers four different types of wine: two red and two white.
“How much more do you need? Do you really want to come to a bar and have a wine list that's got 50 wines on it …You don't know what to pick,” he says, adding that the lounge will host a wine night in the future to test out more varieties and see what their customers like.
Ballach also plans to host private fundraisers, fashion shows, and a mixture of live and DJ entertainment. The music will cover everything from the '80s to '90s and top 40 hits. But also some country – because he likes it, he says.
For those arriving with an appetite, Campbell's Restaurant and Steakhouse next door supplies meals for The Bourbon Room's 10-item menu. Options range from pizza, an egg-topped burger, food platters and chicken wings.
Ballach says The Bourbon Room welcomes people from all walks of life, whether you come in for a drink after work, or look for a night out closer to home.
“To me it's like the Earls lounge with a dance floor,” Ballach says, chuckles, and looks at the waitresses at his table.
“It's hard to say we are a night club. It's a lounge – it's the lounge life, the bourbon lounge life and these are the bourbon babes.”
The Bourbon Room is located at 205 Carnegie Dr. It's open Monday to Saturday from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m.
