East Village Arts Club

If I was a student in Liverpool I imagine I would have spent a lot of time here. There’s a lot of room and the food is cheap, cheap, cheap.
The food was a mixed bag unfortunately. I really enjoyed mine, although I ordered a failsafe grilled cheese with beef brisket and fries. You can’t go too badly wrong there. Chicken wings were also delicious. See Natalie W’s review for what the others in my group thought of the food.
I won’t rush back here next time I’m in Liverpool, but it’s a handy place for a cheap feed in my opinion.

A nice space with lots of room for groups but I guess we should have been tipped off when it was fairly empty at 6pm on a Saturday that it’s not quite as good as it looks. The staff were friendly and dealt with a delay in my meal very well — apologies, explanations and a free glass of wine.
The food was mixed. It’s all a great price that encouraged us to order lots. I thought the ribs and wings were pretty good and the nachos were ok but the cheese was a bit too strong (probably cheddar, although I appreciate it’s hard to get monterey jack cheese in this country) and others complained about the small amount of guacamole. They featured sour cream and chive instead of plain sour cream — not the best choice in my view as it confuses flavour/​appearance but an interesting twist.
My friend is gf and they brought out a table of allergies v dishes which was very helpful, they also offered to (and made) her a burger without a bun. She and my other friend who had a burger weren’t overall that thrilled with them though.
My chilli bowl was unfortunately not good — very dry and no real spice to it. It was basically cooked mince with plain rice. This is touted as one of their classic dishes so they need to review the recipe/​preparation (I note another reviewer had a much better experience 2 years ago).
All in all this has the ingredients of being great with some tweaks to the food.

The venue formerly known as The Barfly was arguably the nucleus of the Liverpool music scene for many years, and EVAC had big shoes to fill when they opened in the same premises a couple of years ago. It’s safe to say that, while remaining primarily a live music venue, they’ve taken a very different approach in almost every respect. Gone are the black walls, dim lighting and dirt-​cheap cans of lager. In are craft beers, autumnal colour schemes, and modern art hanging from the ceilings.
Basically, EVAC is divided into two venues — the loft upstairs, and the theatre downstairs (formerly The Masque), both of which have a capacity of around 250. While a great deal of thought has gone into the interior décor of the building as a whole, there are many things wrong with both of these spaces as venues for live music. For a start, the drinks are offensively overpriced, to the point where it’s not unheard of for punters to go over the road to drink in neighbouring La’go until the main act comes on stage. actually, maybe it’s just me who does this, but still, that’s not a good sign, is it. After all, you’ll be paying roughly half of what you would if you stayed put, for the exact same drinks — that’s not peanuts.
The bar service and general customer interaction is poor, and certainly nowhere near good enough to justify their prices. The security staff are pretty surly and confrontational, when they have no need to be — considering the general clientèle, they probably have one of the cushiest security jobs of any venue in town.
The theatre in particular has been ridiculously overcrowded every time I’ve been to a gig there, to the point where I’ve often had to linger in the hallway outside, being unwilling and/​or unable to force my way in through the wall of sweaty bodies clogging up the narrow entrance to the venue floor. When it gets like this, the levels of heat and discomfort are unbearable in there, particularly in the summer. You’d think with the ticket prices and the mark-​ups they put on their drinks, they’d be able to afford a decent air conditioning system, but sadly not. It always seems like these gigs are over capacity by at least 100 people, and you really have to question that.
It’s not just a music venue, though — they serve food in the downstairs bar during the day, and it has much more of a coffee shop vibe during those hours. Still, the service remains poor, and there have even been occasions where I’ve had to just leave without ordering, as the staff were nowhere to be seen.
Whilst this review has been overwhelmingly negative, there are some plus points that I should get across — the general décor is nice, the sound quality is usually good, and whoever is responsible for booking their gigs deserves a lot of credit — the programme is usually full of quality acts from all over the musical spectrum. Ultimately though, it’s a venue of contradiction — it’s vying for the type of shabby, bohemian, zeitgeist cool that its events list suggests, but will more than likely leave you feeling cold, extorted, and under-​valued in much the same way that your local soulless corporate-​sponsored ‘academy’ does.

I found this place by chance on a night out in Liverpool. It’s a great venue with cool music and cheap drinks. Not far from concert square.
They do food as well and are open in the day so it’s a great place day or night. The bar staff seemed really friendly and it wasn’t too busy for a Saturday night. It was perfect for drinks with friends and is definitely a cool place to hang out.

When you’re hungover, what food do you go for? Are you one of the growing number of people who actually rely on fruit and toast in the morning, or are you still hankering after meat and bread when you’ve had one too many?
If you’re after a hearty meal to soak up the alcohol, the Arts Club on Seel Street should be your new favourite hangout. We wandered in on Saturday for my first birthday meal in Liverpool. There was hardly anyone in, which was surprising — my guess is that, if it was based one street over on Bold, it would’ve been rammed. A music venue at night, the food here is really quite delicious.
There are small plates and starters, burgers, massive bowls of chilli, fried chicken and biscuits etc. We went for a chilli dog each, triple fried chips, and mac & cheese (with bacon). Now this was proper chilli, with hunks of beef in a rich spicy sauce, and the meat was super soft. The pairing with the hot dog was perfect. And with the mac & cheese? Even better. Triple fried chips produced plenty of crispy edges, with just the right amount of seasoning.
Service was really friendly and laid back, giving just the atmosphere we needed to relax after the train journey in and before exploring the city further.