RESTAURANT REVIEW: A Visit to The Bar at boring.now

The bar at boring.nowhas no street address. The establishment's sole listed location is, per its own marketing, “the home page,” which proved difficult to locate by car. We arrived by browser, as one does. Parking was not an issue. Reservations are not accepted. Reservations do not appear to be possible.

The exterior is austere. A small italic line near the top of the door reads it's going up. you could help.We were not, at that moment, prepared to help. We were prepared to be seated.

Pale background. A single horizontal line of progress climbs slowly across the room. No music, no decor, no servers visible at any time during our visit. The lighting is what one might describe as “weekday afternoon at the dental office,” with an additional softness at the corners that intensified, we noted, the longer we sat without moving.

A faint murmur was audible from somewhere behind the bar. The murmur appeared to be commentary on the bar itself. It was difficult to make out the specific words but the tone was that of a stadium announcer who had been at it for several hours.

There is no host. There is no menu. The only available action, after extensive inspection, is a small button labeled $1 bump it. The waitstaff, if there is any, are invisible. We rang the bell. There was no bell. We rang again.

Nothing on offer. We asked the bartender. There was no bartender. We asked again, on the assumption that the bartender was simply on break. The bar does not, in fact, serve drinks. The bar is not, technically, that kind of bar. The bar is a different kind of bar. We had not, at the moment of asking, fully understood what kind.

Same as the drinks. Our companion, who was hungry, was referred to a small italic line about a man named TrustFundTrevor who appears to be a regular. The line did not contain food.

A leaderboard of recurring guests was, at the time of our visit, partially visible behind a folding screen marked who's been here. We unfolded the screen. ferrari_owner_btw appears to be a regular. We did not speak. He did not, to our knowledge, look up.

A man identifying himself as the saboteur was seen entering and immediately walking the bar back by half a percent. Other patrons did not seem to mind. One of them appeared to be in the middle of a 312-day streak of single-dollar bumps. We were told, with admirable matter-of-factness, that he is fine.

We were charged one dollar for what we can only describe as the experience of having watched a number tick. There was no tip line. The check arrived as a confirmation page. The confirmation thanked us by a name we had supplied at the moment of payment, which we had selected mostly to see if the form would accept it. It did. We are now on the leaderboard.

Did not exist.

Three stars. Difficult to recommend in the conventional sense. The bar exists but does not, technically, function as a bar. The food and beverage program does not exist. The decor is, in places, deliberately punitive. The other patrons are largely fictional and several of them are named after rental cars.

That said, the contract is honored: a number was watched, a bar was bumped, the bar moved. We left with a receipt and a name on a board. The board, like the bar, will be reset presently. We would, in spite of all of this, return.