re: Pelican house is awful

I'm sure I'm going to get skewered, but here goes.

My name is Gavin Jobe, and I am one of the owners and managers of the Pelican House. Even though I have been involved since the beginning , I haven't been over here full time until the beginning of this year. Some of you may have met me when I was at Tsunami or Sullivan's before I was here.

I've read the whole thread and have seen several valid points. As local business owners, we do our best to hear what our community has to say and adapt.

Feedback is what makes businesses better, even if it's not exactly constructive.

When we set out to do this event, we wanted to do something that hadn't been done on this scale before. Doing events like this are always a risk because of the outlay of cash you have to put down before you can realize any sales (ordering tons of specialty beers and holding them, shirts, paying for advertising, printing, etc.). Clearly we missed the mark on the price by a few dollars. We all discussed that and came to the same conclusion after the event, but hindsight is 20/20. I can assure you it wasn't some sort of cash grab.

If you attended the event and purchased a ticket online, you received an email from me that night with an explanation and sincere apology. It was our first event of that magnitude, and we definitely didn't do everything right.

For people asking about why we chose to use City Pork for this event, the answer is simple. We are friends with them. We thought a cochon de lait sounded nice. They do that better than us.

At our manager meeting Tuesday, we reviewed the event down to the tiniest detail and made notes on what we would change and what we would keep.

Brewer's Ball aside, I would like to address some other complaints or issues in the thread.

To clarify, we have been open for two years and one month.

1. Yes our rent is high, no its not as high as people say.

2. We pay rent every month, along with all of our other bills, payroll, etc. We are doing fine.

3. I agree that our staff knowledge could be better, and that is something we work on. With 136 beers on draft and many rotating, its difficult to have servers, who generally see this as a part time job, that know your product well enough.

4. Cover charge is only if we have live music that we pay for. It's on Fridays or Saturdays occasionally, and it's never more than $5.

5. Our food is the best bar food in Baton Rouge. I stand by that. If you've had a bad experience here, I apologize, and hope that you will come in one day and let me know when you do so I can make sure you have a great experience.

6. In the event you are at our bar and have a bad time, please take the time to speak to a manager. I see that some of you have done that in the past, and I'm sorry if that didn't affect the change you were looking for.

That's it.