Lucky 13 - Purports to be punk rock with their sub-Zeitgeist tough love routine, but everyone is ugly and the patio stinks. Exacerbated by the central location, as it's often the most convenient place for everyone to have a boring time.
Dalva - Sure, there's lots of "crazy" stuff going on out front, but inside is a straight snooze. Attention DJs - everyone has heard "Guns of Brixton" enough times to last four lifetimes.
Gold Cane - Upper Haight faux dive scores points for cheap drinks, loses points for the instant malaise that sets in when you get a seat and realize this bar blows. I once made out with someone I met here. It was boring.
Chug Pub - Formerly the deadest Irish bar of all time, now populated with conspicuously chesty Asian girls, the men who love them, and their crazy "chug tower." Sounds like a recipe for wild times, but instead it's a recipe for a Blockbuster night.
Absinthe - Not a bar proper, just a really annoying restaurant.
Hotel Utah - Smells like pee, weirdest layout ever, terrible live music, mentally deficient bartenders (except that lady who used to bartend at the Drift, she's super cool). On the plus side, I'm not mad at their turkey burger.
The Clift - The Clift is like ah fuck it, just don't ever go.
Ha-Ra - People love this place but check it out, just because it's old doesn't make it good. Have you been to Clooney's? What's appealing about drinking with homeless people? There are better ways to feel superior to others, like winning push-up contests.
Elixir - Tough call because it's my local and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something happening other than a "quiet night." Points for nice drinks, excellent service and better music than the shitty Ecast machine would connote. Elixir, I really want to make this work, but I need you to step it up. Call me.
Monk's Kettle - Over it. The weird homeless zombie attack kind of ruined it for me. Plus there's no way that bartender is ever going to even smirk at my hilarious quips.
Beretta - My people love this place because it's all like classy and whatnot but we went once and my friend asked for a cranberry and vodka and they cheerily responded, "OK, we don't have cranberry juice, but I can make you fresh hibiscus juice instead." That sentence is like a metaphor for a loveless marriage.
(brief aside, while I was typing this I went to the office kitchen to get a beer, which my coworker Sarah put in her pants and it emerged sans bottlecap. That's the kind of shit that never happens at any of the above bars)
Bonus Track - Some Bars Where There's Always a Story the Next Day:
Place Pigalle - Way back when (2002) you could always count on something happening at Pigalle, though the driving force for that is now gainfully employed as a personal trainer so you could skip, I guess. Actually, I walked by the other day, it's lame now. Forget I brought it up.
Gold Dust - Tourist bars are always good times, the staff here are aces and you've never seen three guys happier to be playing "Suzie Q" for the tenth time this week.
Thieves Tavern - Whatever during the week but the ladies on the early shift on Sunday keep it extra real and make me think it'd be fun to be a lesbian. Non-stop chuckles on laundry day, there's no knocking it.
500 Club - At first I was like yawn with your punk rock but this is a stand-up joint. I met bartender dude there one time via the aforementioned Pigalle pal and he still hooks it up, like a year later. There are not too many female demographics that respond less favorably to my hilarity than the tattooed ladies of the Five Hundo, but I don't care.
There's tons more but I gotta go, it's Friday.
2 comments:
Nice round up. How does the Attic not get a mention? Always stories the next day, unless you all memories have been erased by an alcohol induced concussion.
No more central hip bars. Nowadays its the Eagle Drift Inn and the Silver Spur for me...
Excellent point, many wild times were had at The Attic back in the proverbial day. Now it seems both tamer and louder than I remember it, but that's probably a function of being downright geriatric these days.
Despite being pretty snoozy, Amnesia warrants a mention for their reported poison taps. For years every time we'd go someone would end up collapsed on the street or punched in the face or arrested or something, which led to this idea that they didn't clean their taps and therefore we were subject to extra drunkenness (a bit of a logical leap, with the benefit of hindsight). Turns out those beers are all Belgian and three times as boozy as PBR. The moral of the story, Amnesia seems to always have some fake old-timey thing going on, I walk past and some dude is wearing a bowler hat and playing the zither, which is reason enough to avoid.
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