The Grand Victory

Good small tight place with great ambience and music selection.

Great little concert hall with great cider. It just has such good vibes and the layout is nice for relaxing at a distance or being right up against the stage. It feels like the bands are playing right next to you.

This place ROCKS, literally! The sound is amazing, and it’s a smaller venue that hosts lots of great local bands but also bigger names that are rare to find in intimate settings.
The entire staff is awesome, and my favorite bartender is Lyz with the pink hair. She always serves up drinks with a smile and a joke, and books amazing Saturday matinée shows along with others throughout the week. Her taste in music is impeccable and she will introduce you to lots of new bands (particularly in the punk genre) that you’ll be following for years.
Definitely check this place out if you haven’t already! You won’t be sorry!

Music venues can really be measured in four categories.
Space. Musicians. Service. Crowd.
Different combinations of these can result in many interpretations of how you experience an event and what you take away from it. Which is why i feel it’s important to go at least twice before writing a place off.
Last night was my second time at The Grand Victory. I was attending Nik Turner’s Hawkwind, an English space rock group from the sixties. Their trippy visual projections, science fiction lyrics and jazz fused prog rock was exactly what i was hoping for and received.
The crowd was ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ with people who were actually listening to them in the 70’s and those of us who were born in the seventies (and 80’s & 90’s). When an artist has been around for that long, performing with so many different musicians (i.e. Lemmy from Motorhead) you build a huge fan base. The place was packed, not good packed… TOO packed! The venue seemed to just keep letting people in since they were their. Now i will say their were oddly a lot of LARGE people for some reason, so maybe they didn’t pass capacity they just let in a lot of really big fans.
Packed shows are not uncommon, and this is where the layout of the venu is so crucial. Grand Victory has your basic rectangular box with bar along side in front and stage in back. Also all the way in the back, behind the stage are the only two bathrooms. This causes the problem. You either have to hope you don’t have to go, go across the street (allowable here with hand stamp… thats a big +) or aggressively push your way through the crowd in both directions. The only plus with cutting through the masses is being able to get a quick glance or picture of the performance up close.
The service is forgettable, it’s a loud packed punk, metal bar… if you’re looking for more than your beer and shot to be delivered eventually then you’ll be setting yourself up for disappointment.
If the shows were always like that… the band would have to really be one that i needed to see to go back. That’s why I like to attend twice. Luckily my first visit was last week was perfect. Amazing performance with the perfect size crowd. So enjoyable that everyone in attendance was almost in shock when he (Joe Jack Talcum from the Dead Milkmen) said it was his last song and it had been an hour.
Joe Jack stayed after to great everyone, sign autographs, take pictures and answer geeky punk questions from adoring fans.
If someone I want to see is playing it really doesn’t make a flip of a difference where it is. I’m gonna go! And Joe Jack Talcum’s show is exactly why. Luckily their are places like Grand Victory that are booking great bands!

Pretty average bar. I saw my boyfriend’s band play here for the first time a little while ago. It’s got a nice stage space and a decent audience area, but the bar gets so loud. When a band is playing, it’s impossible to carry on a conversation. It’s almost uncomfortable. The bar itself is cool, pretty ok prices and a pretty ok selection of drinks. But the bar area itself is tiny, and not conducive for a ton of people. It gets crowded really quickly.

The sound guy needs to find a new passion. He ruined the band for me and I follow them all the time!

Really dark and loud bar they have live music which was killer and loud as hell. If I wasn’t sick i’d be getting pretty lively… will come back

Nice place. Great for shows. It’s a little on the small side and can get cramped and hot very quickly because of that. But the bartenders are attentive and there are ample, clean bathrooms. Just watch out for that sharp wooden corner if you’re gonna start a mosh pit.

On a Saturday night, they were holding a dance party and there was a good amount of people still there when we left at 3 am. Nice crowd. The music was sort of like dance music/​indie pop, although that might change from night to night. There’s a $ 10 minimum if you pay with a card.

They are the best! Great sound and staff!

And it was fu**in beautiful, man. Grown men were weeping and screeching like prepubescent girls — it was like as if the Beatles landed in JFK.
Saw Negative Approach here for the second time and this time it was so much better, as their set time started later than usual and the crowd was already stoned and sloppy by the time they took to the stage.
They weren’t running the AC for whatever reason and it was as hot and humid as all hell but we didn’t mind as the show was just so awesome as everybody pretty much lost their shit throughout the entirety of the ~30 minute set.
Let’s face it, this place is a f’n dive complete with sticky floors from years of accumulated beer, vomit and God knows what else, and the only reason why you come here is to see shows. It’s an intimate venue where you will get right up on stage with the bands — the only problem with this is that it sits about 12 inches off the ground so it’s not good enough for stage diving, but hey… can’t have it all…

My friends band plays here from time to time and it’s really the only reason I would ever go here. The drinks are meh and depending on what crabby bartender you get depends on what size cup they give you to stabilize their bi-​polar disorder. If I had to rate this spot based on the passive-​aggressive behavior of the «staff» this place would have a perfect rating.

Love seeing shows in this spot. Drinks are way cheap.

Walking in the neighborhood & stopped by this place. Cool atmosphere with good tunes. They offered $ 3 drafts with a good selection: white ale, bronx ale, empire & six point. Live music is played almost every night which I will come back & check out.

Three dollar drafts and well drinks for happy hour — even on weekends. And ALL drafts, not just the cheapy ones.
Bartenders are always nice. I havent come for a show since it because Grand Victory but it is a great place for a day drink on a weekend — AC and not crowded. Yay!

Live
Music
Lives if you
Pay the cover.
Cheap drinks, simple bar on Bruar Falls grave.

Came here for a show on a Thursday night. Not too packed, and they even returned the cover charge. (not sure why, maybe they felt nice!)
Bar never got too crowded and beers were $ 6 I think. Nice little space for a show, ample room in front of the stage and the DJ that manned the set threw out some nice tunes. (Seriously, he’s a good DJ. I think his name is Max)
P. S. Totem and Lost Coves rock.

My husband and I wandered in here wanting to grab 1 quick drink before seeing a movie. We walked in the door and the guy at the front told us that the cover was going to be $ 8/​person that night. We had no interest in the band that hadn’t yet started to play, so we were about to turn around and walk out when he said that the band wouldn’t start for another hour, so don’t worry about the cover if we were just here to grab a beer. That won me over in and of itself, but then I got to the bar to find out that they have $ 3 beers until 9 PM. That is an unbelievable deal, especially for this neighborhood. We hung out in a cozy booth at the front near a window and enjoyed our beers in the relative quiet of a pre-​show bar. The place has a great atmosphere, friendly bartenders, and friendly patrons, too. Yet another excellent spot to grab a drink before or after a movie.

I really liked Bruar Falls and was sad when it closed, but I’m glad it was replaced with a bar/​venue instead of just one more place in a veritable revolving door of generic Grand St. storefronts.
Came here for the first time for a comedy show the other night and liked the space a lot. It’s a little nondescript; the minimalist Americana décor is nothing special but for some reason I found the light fixtures remarkable. Nice touch.
Super clean, good service and Southampton Double White on tap! I would definitely come back to check out a show here.

The Grand Victory: cheesy name, but yeah, I’d hit that.
Went to see a metal show here this weekend, and really enjoyed the space and the atmosphere. This is an intimate little bar, perfect for local shows. I didn’t know it as Bruar Falls, so maybe this review is more objective than others. Then again, I’ve never really been known for objectivity. :D
The sound is great, the lady bartender was very likely high as a kite (perfect) and wearing a Struck By Lightning tshirt (Columbus represent!), and the gentleman bartender was fine but disinterested. Drinks are moderately priced, though not super cheap — $ 4 for a Bud Light or $ 6 for a well drink. The patrons were super chill and down to earth. One gentleman was clearly a townie celebrity of sorts, because the lady bartender shrieked loudly and bounded into his arms, and then showered him with tequila as he spoke loudly about how Grand Victory used to be Bruar Falls. Well pardon me for arriving late to the party.
The only small complaint I had is that it says on facebook that Saturday night shows are $ 5, and the show we went to was $ 8 — and I saw as well that the Johnny Cash (RIP!) tribute was also $ 8. So you all might wanna change that so as not to mislead more patrons. But otherwise, I really enjoyed my time here and would like to come back and hang out sometime after work. I hope you all have a good happy hour!