The Goat

The bartender yelled at a group of three for not tipping enough when 2 of 3 had not cashed out on $ 4 liquor night. Don’t act like pouring a different bottle of liquor is harder than a well bottle. $ 40+ on a $ 56 combined bill (the discounted rate) is not enough for you? Not worth our time.

There is a certain trashy appeal to dive bars, but seeing that someone drove their John Deere here? Priceless.
And thus began the odyssey that is known as The Goat. A good friend of mine was willing to indulge my nostalgie de la boue while on a trip to Raleigh and took me to the goat. Sure, we were sweaty and in neon, day-​glo clothing from running an Electric Run, but nary an eyelash was bat as we entered.
This place has a divey, slightly but not overly hipsterish, former frat house, local watering hole vibe going on, and it works quite well. The drinks were cheap and although we didn’t partake in the shot game machine, I’m glad to know such a novelty exists and is available to help someone go from 0 to White Girl Wasted in a few minutes. Speaking of White Girl, the drinks here are loaded. You can tell there is no skimp in the pour.
For those who wish to stimulate their brain cells as they kill them, there is a selection of games you can place at your table, including an ovesized Jenga, which I must admit, I stared at intently to see which person one table over had the least amount of hand-​eye coordination. The appeal continues into the WC, where you get to urinate into a huge, mouth-​shaped urinal. Oh fratiness, how art thou?
A John Deere, stiff drinks, and dollar bills taped to the walls: reminds me of my Aunt Flossie’s wedding.

Lots of friends and co workers LOVE this place. So unfortunately, I’ve been here at least 20 times. The good: The drink specials are usually great deals and the drinks themselves are always top notch. Great environment. Good location. The bad and ugly: If you don’t mind being treated however the bartender feels at the moment, this is the bar for you! Bartenders pick and choose who they want to serve next. 5 different nights after standing at the bar and trying desperately to get a drink, I got extremely annoyed. All 5 times someone else (people who drink here every weekend) had to get my drinks for me. Knowing what I had just experienced, I was always amazed out how fast other people could get the drinks I had already waited in line and tried to order. I know you’re thinking, you should be more assertive. There’s a fine line between trying to get a drink made and having the police called on you because you told the bartender the truth about themselves. So, I don’t mess around with bartenders, especially in Raleigh. After my last experience, I vowed to never step back into this place. I stood in a long line for almost 5 minutes. When it was my turn, the bartender looked me dead in the face and said well, this line is done. She proceeded to help people in line at the total opposite end of the bar. If I were drunk, rude, inconsiderate, or the type of person to cause a scene then I could understand being treated this way almost every time. While I’m always up for some drinks with friends and co workers, I’m a firm believer that you should never have to beg a business to take your money. Especially when its made quite obvious that they don’t appreciate your business at all.

What has happened to The Goat? It is no longer that seedy dive bar that I loved. It is full of young urbanites wearing tight jeans or tights. And you should see what the ladies are wearing to say «look at me». It is 6:00 PM and not one single person is intoxicated and the floor is clean! At 50, I am the oldest person in here. The regulars are gone.
The drink is still pretty stiff and the bartender friendly.

Stumbled across this little dive while entertaining an out of town guest after a rather interesting 5K. Unbelievably good people-​watching, cheap drinks, giant Jenga. What else do you need? Honestly, the most eclectic group of people in one tiny venue I’ve witnessed since living in Raleigh. It started to get a little crowded (and a little more than a little weird) later on in the night, but overall, I’d probably go back for the cheap entertainment and the super-​friendly staff.

I’ve tried several times, and I just can’t be impressed by this place. «Meh» is so perfect to describe this place. I love dive bars, and prefer them hands down to sports bars, clubs, and any of the other multitude of bar genre’s. However, this one is just missing the mark. You walk in there and you can tell at some point in time they were once awesome, but that time has not been within the last five years. The patrons for lack of a better word, generally seem like d-​bags and all stay very close to the groups they’re with, barely acknowledging the petty attempts at small talk while waiting for drinks. The bartender’s aren’t much better. Maybe I have not been drunk enough at this place for it to seem like it was a cool place the next day, but overall, I’m not impressed. The only time I remotely enjoyed this place was one Christmas Eve five years ago, when there was no college crowd and the people there that night were in their 30’s that all seemed to be avoiding Christmas for one reason or another.

Used to love this place, but it has gone way down hill. The crowd is older and nastier and almost all regulars that are not interested in talking to strangers. The events are very trendy and played out (not in a good way) such as an «all white night» and retarded college bs consisting of blow up dolls… Expect to step in puke, and to get a smaller than expected bar tab, take the good with the bad…

This is an overrated dive bar full of bro douche bags. I love dive bars and this place is too shitty even for my taste.

I always think I’ve found the best dive bar ever — then I’m surprised. Dog-​friendly. Red Bull vodka slushees. That’s a real thing here. $ 2 jello shots. $ 1 mystery beer on Sunday. This place does so many things right.

The Goat is a true dive bar. Yeah, you’re not going to see the most beautiful people in the world drinking here but you will definitely get the most bang out of your buck (and by bang I mean black out drunkness).
I’ve heard it can be a pretty hairy joint sometimes, but the only time I’ve ever been it was pretty quiet. However, I’d put up with scary for vodka and Red Bull slushes.
I got goat faced at the shit bar.

Definitely a dive bar but a fun one. People are friendly and staff is great. Mostly locals and quite a few regulars, in general if you want to just throw on anything and not feel you have to dress up (though you can if you wish) and have fun without being constantly judged; then this is the place for you.

I went to The Goat several times in college and I’ll go ahead and say, I enjoyed it. The parts of it I remember, I enjoyed. They were lax about carding and even more lax about what constituted a «shot» of vodka or tequila, and apparently also pretty lax about calling people taxis when they were blackout wasted, but the bar itself I remembered as being pretty cool.
Unfortunately my latest experience didn’t live up to those memories. Yes, they have a Whiskey-​Slushie machine, which is awesome. Yes, they have the shot wheel, which is cool.
The downside is that the crowd is older, dirtier, a little less friendly, a little more smelly. We stayed for a few drinks but ended up leaving earlier than planned after a clearly QUITE wasted «gentleman» would not stop coming by our table and insinuating he would like to pay us to spend some «quality time» with him.
The prices are reasonable considering they still overpour like whoa.
If you want to hit a true dive bar like The Goat, don’t drive all the way out Western, just go to the Ugly Monkey downtown. It’s owned by the same people, but it draws a younger, more upscale crowd, has much hotter barstaff, newer pool tables, the same dang shot wheel, and best of all if you find it’s just not for you, you can stumble out the back door and go over to the Flying Saucer or any of the other bars within a 2-​block radius, WITHOUT having to drive.

Here we go, #100!
The Goat was the perfect place on a snowy Saturday night to celebrate a 30^th birthday (not mine!) We had just eaten at Dos Taquitos and wanted to hit up a bar closer to home. We had driven by The Goat several times and it just looked so… weird. So, we decided to give it a try. I mean, the name alone was intriguing enough. It’s right off Western Blvd., attached to Pam’s Farmhouse Restaurant (p.s., why have I not eaten here yet?)
We stepped inside, and to be honest, I was afraid. But I figured we had a group, so let’s give it a shot. It’s actually much cleaner-​looking than I imagined it to be. Yes, it’s a dive bar, but the bartender brought her own Crockpot from home to share some warm food with the patrons on this cold evening, and it had a cozy feel to it.
They have typical bar games, urinals that look like big mouths (I just caught a peek when the door was open!), not to mention a spinning wheel if you can’t figure out which shot to drink next, including «Bartender’s Choice.» Two words: «Tequila Mockingbird.»
One major downside is no jukebox. The bartender on duty obviously plays what he/​she wants, which thankfully was good enough that night. Ooh, ooh, and they have a Frozen Jack & Coke machine, which was a fun treat. We’ll definitely return to The Goat again.

Life is like a garbage can full of mystery beer, you never know what you are going to get… lol. I love The Goat. I always have a great time there. There is always someone to play cornhole with and there is plenty of TVs to watch games on. The décor is awesome with dollar bills lining the cieling and the coolest urinal in the Men’s room.

The Goat is quite plain and simply a dive bar.
I happen to like the occasional dive bar on my endless search for interesting beer and people watching.
This place had all my requirements: TV’s playing disparate programming, home-​made drinking game fixtures, well behaved drunks. Check, Check and check.
*The Sweetwater draughts are sublime*

It’s called «The GOAT.» I just wanted to start my review off with that, because I will not judge The Goat as though in a side-​by-​side comparison with some prissy bar. If I wanted to go to a prissy bar, I would not find myself, ever, in an establishment called The Goat, which is adjoined to another establishment, an eatery which is called «Pam’s Farmhouse.»
Now that we have had a refresher on calling a spade a spade, I love the Goat for what it is. I had a brief run there when I found myself in bars more than I do now (I’m in divinity school now, and don’t hit the bar scene like I once could) and the Goat was a good time. I was there about a month ago for a good time and an hour, and a beer. Not too much had seemed to have changed. With the revival of the downtown areas just a few miles down the road, which I am not at all against, we are up to our ears in elitist bars where you can go to spend eight bucks for a microbrew or fourteen for a martini. I’m good for that when the mood hits, but sometimes you aren’t up for that; you don’t want to be surrounded by boys that are prettier than you are, and so where in Raleigh can you go? I’ll tell you where — the good old Goat.

I hate to be that guy who has nothing good to say about a place other than «it used to be great,» but here I am telling you just that. The Goat used to be great, but now it’s best to find another spot.
When first stumbled upon, The Goat was relatively new. This didn’t keep it from getting crowded on the weekends, but there was a fairly cool feeling about the place with its steel-​looking (aluminum?) bar tables and Trivial Pursuit decks laying around the area to crack into any lulls in the conversation. Time was, you could even take a box of questions to another table and challenge some of the meanest looking guys there… and they loved it!
Over a few years, though, the crowds started shifting to groups that had no interest in anything beyond a meat market… and the «wheel of drinks» that I once thought was so fun became a cheap way to get someone drunk. The crowds eventually became less friendly, and even the regulars started embracing the first impression that they were not to be disturbed lest you leave with less limbs than you came in with rather than going out of their way to prove it was wrong.
It still might be worth a stop once, but I have no desire to go back again.

I enjoyed the atmosphere at first but the music and crowd became a bit too mainstream and southern for my taste. This is a very small bar. It seems like a regular sports bar at first impression but after hanging around a while things became more obvious. It is isolated off of western away from any other like’ establishments and apparently with reason. The crowd here is pretty seedy and its usually extremely crowded to the point of not being able to walk through the small building. I’ve only been here twice (not by choice) and noticed almost everyone is coked out or selling coke/​crack. I would suggest to stay away unless you’re into that type of thing.

The Goat is located by itself on a for the most part deserted end of Hillsborough street. The bar itself is pretty small, and pulls a really interesting crowd of people that are for the most part older, and not the type that seem to shower on a regular basis.
They don’t serve food so they have «private club» status; a membership will only cost you a $ 1 however. They serve jello shots (I’ve never seen any other bar do this) and have board games available as well as TV’s to check out sporting events that may be going on. The drinks are exceptionally cheap, and the bartenders do a good job making them.
The crowd here can sometimes get a little dicey for me. I recommend going in a larger group if you plan on going.

The Goat terrified me before I actually first went to it. It is a blessing and a curse to have an active imagination; every time I would drive past it would conjure up images of bizarre rituals or dingy sadomasochistic dungeons and I’d keep on my merry way. One day I bit the bullet and went with some chums, not without some trepidation. As I crossed the threshold into the place my apprehensions melted away. It’s has a smallish bar area with loads of liquor and a we-​are-​the-​world level of diversity of drink specials. All this would garner 3 stars from me, but they upped the ante by playing Triumph (Wu-​Tang) and Baby I Got Your Money (ODB) back to back after I got good and sauced up. 90’s era rap mixed with plentiful booze filled me with such glee that I will always have a tender place for it in the cold, jumbled mass of metal tubing where my heart used to be.