1) You're in luck that we don't have an event planned for Friday so expected business can be quite variable and totally unpredictable as it is shore season and all. We always hope for a solid hit early Friday but can't predict when(/if) customers will decide to show up.
Would holding the banquette work for you folks? It has three tables, we can easily fit in a fourth. It has an L shaped bench and we can fit in a bunch of chairs too. I should be to hold that without upsetting anyone; we wouldn't need any guaranteed minimum. We can probably easily fit 12 people in there comfortably. If you scale up to 25, we can rearrange other customers around the room within reason as tables and coveted bar seats open up, and push together a bunch of tables by the window for you all.
2) Barry, I'm glad you enjoyed the place. You could be surprised by the number of uber-technies that show up at the G-Lodge, but the Website could be responsible for that. Ours dates back to when you had to actually submit your site to Yahoo for a human review and approval. The constant updating tends to encourage regular viewing, which also appeals to a techier than average crowd.
3) I'm also glad you managed to experience what is so cool about The Grey Lodge (and I take no credit other than not having screwed it up during 12 years) that people can arrive solo and meet friendly people. We have great people on both sides of the bar.
3) I have been full time at the bar (7 days a week) for 12 years and worked the cubicle job two days a week that whole time up until about a month ago. The bar is absorbing some that new time but so are a few other projects. I'm enjoying not being so rigidly scheduled.
4) Paul was really close, but it's Pat. Good memory.
5) An SSL tunnel seems to me like something that could get one in trouble with a large corp if they eventually found out.