Do you have a favorite bar? As someone who didn't really start drinking until my mid-20s, I didn't even know - except maybe for TV shows like Cheers - that one could have a favorite bar. In fact, I've never had a bar like the one in Cheers. Not even close.
& the more I think about it, all my favorite places to drink were in Austin. & now they're gone. Seriously.
The truth is, most of the bars I went to, I didn't go for things like drinking, or atmosphere, or coolness. I went for one thing: cheese fries. In my pre-vegan days I would travel far & wide for cheese fries. With lots of jalapeños on them. My god.
For fuck's sake I said no bacon! Assholes. Yes, I'll wait for you to make a new batch. Don't just scrape it off!
There was a bar close to downtown Austin that I used to bus to - this was in my bachelor days, when I had no car - just to sit & read & have a couple of beers & eat cheese fries. This was so long ago & they closed before the turn of the century that I can't remember their name. I went there with a friend the last night they were open & they were out of beer - I guess they were a brew pub - but the sad thing was also that the kitchen was closed. I wonder what's there now? Not a bar, that's for sure.
At some point I became all right with the cheese fries at a place called The Dog & Duck, on Guadalupe. It was near my work so sometimes we'd go there on Fridays to drink & hang out. It closed some time back, but I just checked & they've opened a new location in East Austin. I don't go back to Austin very much anymore but I doubt I'd go back there. For one thing, I mainly went for the cheese fries. & I don't eat cheese anymore.
A great bar with a great jukebox was Lovejoy's, which closed four years ago. During South By Southwest they'd have cool day shows; I practiced (& mostly failed) picking up pretty girls there. It was right off Sixth Street, near KOOP, & I'd occasionally stop in for a pint after a meeting. It was usually crowded, but I'd find a lonesome spot to watch the proceedings. Chain smoking miserably. Funny how you can miss such things.
& it would be remiss not to say something about Club DeVille. Not a favorite of mine - it was more a cocktail bar than anything else - but it was cool to take women there. Also, I deejayed there a couple of times for KOOP, so when it closed it was like, There's no proof left anymore you did anything Gary.
For whatever reason, I never went to a lot of bars in Lexington, so I don't really have an opinion about any of them. & I have only been to one place here in Fort Worth, where I saw a show, & didn't even drink. There's a pub down the street (within walking distance, sort of) called the Royal Falcon Pub but I've read on Yelp that the place is choked with cigarette smoke which made me realize that Fort Worth isn't smoke-free. That's kind of fucked-up. It's 20damn17 folks!
Maybe I won't be exploring bars here for a while.
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