Jenn T.
Yelp
Oh, Brillo. How the mighty have fallen.
I remember a time - and not all that long ago, actually - when the question 'where do you want to go tonight?' would often be answered with an enthusiastic, 'BRILLO!'
And now... it's just like... the thing we want to see is being hosted here; let's hope we don't have to use the bathroom all night.
Do not despair - I will tell you, in time, why it is still worth it to come out to this relic of our yester-Lville.
I haven't eaten there in a good while, and last I did, the food was yummy. We haven't seemed to make it during kitchen hours lately, but I do remember the food fondly.
The drinks? Eh, not so much. I would say, stick to wine or beer if you're drinking here. Single-spirit mixed drinks - like a vodka-soda, etc - are a pretty safe bet as well. But anything past that? Not impressed.
Now, on to the *real* reason you want to come here: DANCE NIGHTS.
Title Town has moved here after the closing of the Shadow Lounge (::tears::). This is hosted the second Saturday of every month, and is $3 before 10pm, $6 after, but worth every penny, no matter what time you arrive. The DJs are fantastic (J Malls & Gordy & maybe another guest DJ or two), the music is all old funk, soul, & R&B, and you will dance until you fall over.
The second, also fantastic dance night is Second Skin, which is generally hosted every other month, although the days of the week appear to change. (Your best bet here is to like Second Skin on Facebook so you can get notifications of when the dance nights are.)
Second Skin is a gothy dancefest. You don't have to be goth to love it; believe me, there are plenty of hipsters out there shaking it on the dance floor as well. But it's all really, REALLY well-curated goth dance music. Post-punk, new wave, little bits of industrial. Basically, if you could dance to it dressed in all black, you will hear it from the wonderful Erica Scary & crew. Now that Eclipse has closed and we've lost our other goth night in the city, this is the event to look out for every other month.
The negatives of Brillo: the upstairs bathroom. A bathroom so heinous that the Trainspotting bathroom told it to maybe clean its act up. The floor will be wet (it's real slippy, yinz watch aht!). There will probably not be any toilet paper. Someone may have used paper towels in place of the toilet paper, so you may have a scary situation. Be warned. Hold it as best you can, or make your way downstairs to the less-nightmare-inducing bathrooms.
On the subject of wet floors: the dance floor at Brillo ALWAYS seems to be wet. Spilled drinks I guess? Or sweaty humans? Perhaps some combination of the two? Regardless, just be careful when you are dancing your brains out that you don't slip, bump your head, and actually knock some brains out.
And it *will* be crowded. Always. It will always be crowded at some point of the evening. Be ready for it. And try your hardest to watch that your elbows don't go into someone else's dancing real estate (looking at you, my flaily hipster friends). We can all get along in this smelly, sticky, slippery space.
And all the negatives will be worth it, because you will dance so hard you forget they all exist.