This was a very interesting/odd restaurant experie...

This was a very interesting/odd restaurant experience for me.

This restaurant seems at once staunchly sure of what it wants to be and entirely unsure of what it wants to be.

Food - 5/5
Service - 5/5
Atmosphere - 0/5 (can I give this a lower score?)

Immediately upon walking into Rhythm Cafe we were greeted with kind, smiling faces from the servers. However, in the same instance, every one of our senses was violently assaulted with bizarre smells, odd music, and the most god-awful decor that anyone in my party had ever seen. It was so strange and loud and weird that it distracted from the otherwise pleasant experience.

The restaurant seems to be going for a fun 60's fine-dining vibe, but by way of a drug-fueled fever dream. For every piece of art featuring Marilyn Monroe or The Beatles, there is one featuring South Park or Mr. Potatohead. They have Christmas lights on year round apparently and the shelves behind the bar are COVERED in odd knick knacks from vintage Barbies to multiple Mr. Potatohead dolls, to an entire shelf full of old cans of beans. There were multiple Flamingo statues, some wearing flamboyant clothing. When we entered, we were overcome with a smell of cat food or kitty litter, or some kind of cat smell - not a good smell, and it was strong. The art on the walls was mostly 60s modern art style, but it was all so bright and loud and colorful - not at all a bad thing for a 60s themed restaurant, but in conjunction with all the other strange decor made the atmosphere so unbearably distracting that one can barely focus on the surprisingly delicious food and really great service.

Everything on the menu is unique and interesting and sounds delicious. Everything we ate there was wonderful and original. Our server was personable and nice and deserved the big tip he got. I really wanted to love this place, the wine and beer selection was great, and the food really was quite good. But the atmosphere was so disturbingly disjointed and weird that it honestly made everyone in my party uncomfortable to the point that more than one of us could not finish our food; which again, was good.

I would recommend this restaurant to anyone who is blind and/or owns a blindfold and nose plugs. The food is very good, but not so good that it makes me want to go back and brave the knick-knacky 60s-yet-not-60s fever dream. Perhaps an elderly, tacky, Tim Burton fan might enjoy it, but other than that I cannot fathom who this atmosphere was designed for.