Mikes Tap and Tavern

NO LONGER «MIKE’S» NOW CALLED PLAYERS — STILL TERRIBLE!
Went there to watch a football game and had probably the worst service experience of my life. We sat at the bar, and it was halfway through the first quarter before the bartender noticed us and took our beer order. Shortly after we ordered some nachos… and still hadn’t received them by halftime. The bartender asked us who we placed our order with, and when we said «you,» she acted surprised like she’d never seen us before. Then she blamed the kitchen and said the cook was «being weird all night with food and making people wait a long time.» We cancelled our hot food order and asked for simple chips and salsa, and received a small basket of chips with a small cup of salsa for $ 6. Seemed overpriced for the portion of something so basic. Their menu is tiny, not much to choose from. Pizza: you can get a single slice, or an x-​large, nothing in between. Player’s is supposedly under new management, which I can’t imagine is an improvement over Mike’s. The entire game we only had 2 beers a piece because the bartender kept forgetting about us. There weren’t that many people there so there was no excuse for such poor service. I’ll never go back there again and will not recommend it to anyone I know. WORST SERVICE EVER.

The food is typical bar food but worse. The batter is bland and the staff curses across the restaurant. I don’t recommend

Went bar hopping on a double date and ended up here after dinner. I like that it is next door to One Night Stand and SIP. As I entered upon this establishment I noticed the large selection of televisions, beers on tap and has plenty of space to walk/​move.
I like that there are two pool tables, basketball shot-​game and darts in the far back to keep those type of people entertained.
I will recommend this place from the maintstream of bars on Central Ave and in the middle of a country and club.

All i have to say is the pizza was black on the bottom and the bartender could have served/​sold us a lot more beer.

Food and atmosphere are great.
The issue is lack of staff, not the staff itself. The staff has been great, but for lunch it generally will take 1 hour plus. Today was especially crowed and there was only 1 waitress. Lucky we ordered early, but while we waited for our food at least three tables left, two were parties of 6+. Felt for the waitress who was struggling. There was a Manager, but he did not help at all, not really sure what he does but I know he doesn’t help customers. .
As great as the food is, there are plenty of others options in downtown St. Pete.
To bad.

It hasn’t gotten better. The service is soooo bad and too top it off the bartender (black hair past her shoulders) was so rude. Made a rude comment to me and instead of taking care of the customers she was texting on her phone. I know they’ve already lost some customers, if they don’t make a change in the service they’re going to keep losing customers.

Updated review:
Does the owner/​manager realize they are a service based enterprise? Why can’t they find decent service? Their waitresses for the most part don’t know which way is up. Watching a football game (which is the number one reason to go to the Taphouse), we had three waitresses. My parents ordered a salad. Ten minutes later I ordered a pound of boneless wings. My boneless wings came out 5 minutes before their antipasto salad!
Three waitresses make figuring out your bill very difficult. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes to get your drink other times it takes two.
Food and service get two stars and TVs get four stars.

By far the best place in downtown st Pete. Service was awesome. Everyone was super cool and attentive. Food was excellent. I highly recommend. Especially for wings and football along with the extensive craft beer selection.

ImBest Reuben in town… Bartender Sherry is fantastic… Slice New York style pizzza is awesome also…

Watched the Rays game here with a few buddies the other night. My comments: nice clean layout, especially for a sports bar. Lots of TVs, great beer selection. Wings and pizza were very good. My only gripe: we were badgered into playing the trivia game with the promise of winning a $ 25 credit. So… we stuck around longer than planned and had more beers. We won, only to find out you can’t use the credit on the same day– LAME.
Note: This is on 1^st Avenue North (not South).

First of all, this place had recently remodeled and is now called «Tap House,» or at least, that is what the sign out front read. Maybe they got rid of Mike? I submitted «Tap House» under «add a business» to Unilocal,but it didn’t fly. They added the business with the same name and corrected the punctuation by adding an apostrophe. At least I can sleep tonight knowing that Mike’s/Tap House’s/whatever’s page is now grammatically correct!
After the Tampa Bay Rowdies game was over, my companion and I decided to try the «Tap House» since they had just recently remodeled. He is a regular in the downtown circuit, knows the bars fairly well, so he wanted to try a new place. In addition, it was close to Al Lang Stadium.
I loved this bar when we first walked in, but the experience quickly went downhill through the night.
The first thing I noticed and immediately fell in love with was the fact that they had a multitude of televisions! This was a bar after this sportsgirl’s heart! Everything was shiny, new and fairly clean. The bar wasn’t too over crowded and had plenty of seating. The bar setup was beautiful with a myriad of craft beers to choose from!
Candace, our server, was pleasant. She was a bit slow with a couple of our requests, but I got the feeling that she was new.
The A/​C seemed to be on full blast when we arrived, but for some reason, someone kept leaving the door open, so the temperature would fluctuate in the bar. This would be fine if we were in Minnesota, but we are in Florida!
The bar owners also own Sip, an alleged «upscale» lounge next door. Well, that is great for them, but all night long we would hear the obnoxious music and bass coming from Sip. It was annoying because we were trying to watch Game 2 of the NHL Playoffs!
In addition to sharing the lovely tunage, the Tap House also shares restrooms with Sip. There is an ADA compliable ramp which leads to a small hallway of these restrooms. The problem is, the hallway is not lit! Of course, there is lighting from both of the bars, but it pretty damn dark in there. OSHA and the ADA would definitely be able issue several violation notices. Also, being that America has become such a litigious society, this just screams a lawsuit waiting to happen.
To also add to our disappointment, the «myriad» of craft beers we were able to choose from was very limited. Our choices from 40 beers were reduced 50% to 20. There was some mechanical issue with the pumps or something to that effect.
I settled for a Redd’s Apple Ale and my date choose a St. Bernardus Abt 12. I am not a fan of dark ales, so the beer tasted too bittersweet to me, but, he seemed to enjoy it. The Redd’s Apple Ale… well, you can’t go wrong.
We ordered the Blackened Wings and the Broccoli Bites. The broccoli bites didn’t taste too bad, and almost had a sort of creamy texture in the middle. The wings didn’t taste bad either, except that their idea of «blackened» was tossing the wings in some Lawry’s Seasoning Salt. Ummm… no that doesn’t constitute «blackened.»
So, needless to say, not a big fan of this place. I don’t foresee us going back in the near future. There are too many great bars to choose from in Downtown St. Petersburg, and I would definitely not choose this one.
So, maybe they didn’t get rid of Mike? Maybe he left on his own accord…

It was my first time here. I walked up to the bar and could not believe my ears.
Beware of the crazy female bartender that worked last night (Friday 6÷7÷14) with the flower headband. I witnessed her pretty much treat her customers like crap. These people ordered drinks and underpaid unintentionally so she pretty much in the most unprofessional attitude told them that she would not serve them again. That is putting it nicely… her language was horrifying… Hey… they were just out having fun and made a mistake… There weren’t going to run out and not pay the $ 2 that was owed. I hope they did not tip her because as a bartender myself this girl would have been fired on the spot! I saw the manager apologize to the guy afterwards. but the point is. there was no need for this attitude. I am making sure this bartender gets rated on Unilocal!!!I was afraid to order any drinks from her and I am sure others felt the same way. Beware!!!
I do not think I will be back… besides that the atmosphere was ok. great beer selection

Basically a sports bar with a vast selection of beers. The beers on tap probably change a lot, but they had St. Bernardus Abt 12 and that was exciting for me. Really long bar with rows of televisions along the wall, making it a great place to «catch the game.» Very spacious, so crowds are definitely welcome. The bar also features some skeet ball and two pool tables, which is a plus. Service was adequate until it got busy. The bartender was working solo at the bar and there was one guy making food, so she was easily overwhelmed. Perhaps a second bartender on Saturdays evenings is in order?
As for the food, we weren’t hungry, so we ordered some cheese sticks and the coconut shrimp. The cheese sticks were standard issue, but the shrimp was really good. It came with a piña colada dipping sauce that was on-​freaking-​point. A guy at the bar told me the burgers are fantastic, but I had to just take his word for it.
My only suggestion, fix the spelling errors on the menu. Piña colodo, hame and sandwhiches for example.

Great beer selection. But for some reason, they recently upped the prices one some of them and they’re higher than Ale and the Witch. Not sure what that’s about
Service is okay but nothing to write home about. I did enjoy their pizza and it was flavorful.
I’d recommend this place if you want good and craft beer while you’re in downtown St. Pete.

My first impression was not with the atmosphere or booze, but rather the super helpful staff. By staff I mean the bartender. I was walking over from the Hilton in the rain and Google Maps decided to take a shit on my iPhone. I called and she told me how to get there. Once I was inside, I was pleasantly surprised by the huge selection of draft beer and the number of TVs everywhere. This is a very cool spot. I ordered the boneless wings and a Stella. It was great. The food was delicious and the beer was cold. The service was the best part!
Bonus — They give you hotel points for spending money here, which is the way I found it in the first place (HHonors). I miss football season, but you can bet your ass I’ll be parking mine here all year next fall!

I want to love Mike’s…St. Pete was in need of a cool sports bar for so long and Mike’s ALMOST delivers… but the service is by far the worst service I have ever had, and it’s the same way every time I come.
The food and atmosphere are both great, which is the only reason I bother coming back. But you will wait at LEAST 20 minutes before a waitress bothers to come to your table and you better be ready to order because you will not see her again until your food (finally) comes another 45 minutes after that.
If you’re impatient with service, DO NOT GO HERE. You definitely have to be in a chill mindset or you will go crazy. But again, the food is good and they have a nice selection of beers on tap. And plenty of TV’s — although one more bone I have to pick with them is that they don’t always have the sound for games on and getting them to put it on is a pain.

Why 4 stars? Because of the following items…
— — —
Keeping this one short and sweet:
–Great beer selection
–Tons of TV’s
–Not over-​crowded
–Solid overall vibe.
4 good characteristics = 4 stars*
*This is not an exact science.

So many places have come and gone in this space and I am hoping that Mike’s will be here to stay.
At first I thought I was at your standard bar and would see pub food on the menu, but so there is a great variety and I have enjoyed everything I have ever had. My favorite so far was the Asian platter and its a great deal. Perfect dinner, garlic knots are awesome.
Watching my friends try to beat the bladder buster on Thursday nights is hilarious.
Service has been great and I’m starting to feel like a regular with them. Décor is cool, couldn’t believe it was the same building!

I really like this place. I think they have a great thing going. A few thoughts:
+ Their beer selection is excellent. 30 – 40 taps with a heavy focus on local beer (Rapp, Cycle Brewing, Cigar City, TBBC, 7venth Sun).
+ The staff is very friendly. My family has been several times and the wait staff is always very helpful and on top of things.
+ Kids menu
+ Everything we have eaten there has been great.
— Awesome chicken wings (try the Garlic parm)
— Tasty sandwiches
— Very good Italian Beef.
+ Tons of TV’s with all the games.
Check them out!

Forty beers on tap? Twenty 50 inch HDTVs? Every sandwich under $ 8? Sign me up!
Very good selection of beers and superb value and quality sandwiches and salads. This is a must visit venue! I will definitely be catching a few Rays and Bucs games at Mike’s this year! Super service only makes the place better.