El Barrio Latino Bar & Club

A very nice option for a Friday or Saturday night. Free entrance, nice dance music and many international people!

I went here a couple of weeks ago for the birthday of one of the Mr’s colleagues. We had a great night — in spite of the El Barrio experience.
El Barrio is a pretty huge basement Salsa nightclub, right in the centre of Merchant City. We arrived at 8 pm — apparently the opening times on their website are incorrect, so we were turned away as they don’t open until 9pm on Saturdays.
A quick pint at the 13^th Note, and we were back. In retrospect, I wish we had just moved the night out to Boteco Do Brazil.
First up, we bought the most expensive 2 rum and cokes I’ve ever had — almost £12! To make it worse, the bar staff were extremely unpleasant — one of them very obviously hated her life, and looked like she would have hurled the drinks in our faces of she could. Instead she opted for pouring irregularly measured drinks and throwing them across the bar at us.
There were issued over where we were sitting. Apparently some of the tables were reserved, so we were moved. Even though we had been told to sit anywhere and there was no reserved signs lying about. And the manager was unnecessarily narky about it.
We were taught a few salsa steps by the dance instructor — this was fun, but done very quickly considering we are a bunch of non dancers.
There was a girl wandering about dressed up as a commando, with shot glasses instead of bullets, and bottles of margaritas instead of guns. As she was selling shots cheaper than at the bar (go figure!), we obviously had one — which tasted watered down, and with the worst lime I’ve ever had the misfortune of putting in my mouth.
And then the hen party arrived. Already extremely drunk, and some very clearly not 18, they invaded the dance floor — and everyone else left it. I mean, who else wants to join a circle of half naked women, rubbing themselves up and down the supporting pillars? The phrase ‘I hope they bleach those pillars after this’ is now indelibly embedded in my memory.
And then the music got cranked up. From typical club volume, to so loud you can’t hear someone sitting in your ear. We lasted 20 minutes of that and left. My ears were still ringing 3 days later.
It pains me to give a review like this, but the only redeeming feature of the night was the company we were with. El Barrio, in my opinion, is beyond saving.
Suffice to say, I will not be darkening their doorstep again. Ever.

Had a good night in this night club, I think it opened a couple of weeks ago. Entry was free the bar (as the hole club) looks clean and organised. Unfortunately it wasn’t that crowded that night, but we had a good time dancing to charts and latin music.