Not the ones who bought a bunch of s*** at an auction and bolted it to the walls - I’m talking about local places that have real history.
I just spent hours at My Brothers Bar in Lower Downtown Denver. If you walked by it you’d never know it was a bar. There is no signage whatsoever. It looks like someone’s quaint old house. Inside, there are no Televisions and the only music is classical determined by the bar staff, who can also make you a perfect Old Fashioned or pour a great Guiness.
This was the hangout for the Beat writers of the 1950’s. Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Alan Ginsburg… There is a framed letter on the wall from Cassady (written from prison) asking a friend to pay off his bar tab.
Manuel’s. A timeline of the history is here. I didn’t realize until reading that that it was where Carter made the announcement that he was running for GA Governor again (for the second time, this time successfully).
Before they closed for major renovations (they’re now reopened), folks from the university where I work and another one up the road did 3D scans of all the rooms and are creating a virtual walk-through of the pre-renovation space.
House of 1000 Beers, usually just called “the house”, is my go-to place for refreshment. Opened originally by a beer lover at the beginning of the craft-beer craze, the house has blossomed into a fine dining establishment.
True to its name, there are over 1000 unique bottles/cans as well as 40 draft beers and an occasional cask. Originally the only food was chexmix. Then one day a local chef approached the owner with a vision of fine dining in a bar. That took off and is going strong.
Monthly beer-food pairings sell out in minutes. Breakfast events have included a donut-beer pairing and a crepe-beer pairing. What a way to start the day!
I’m in the UK so you can’t swing a cat without hitting a pub that’s at least 100 years old. My local, the Prince of Wales, dates from the 1880’s but has been updated several times over the years. In 2009 it was CAMRA regional champion making it one of the top 16 pubs in the country. It’s been the local CAMRA branch pub of the year every year for the last 10 or so years.
Down the road is The Ship where in 1860 the first international bare-knuckle prize fight took place.
I forgot to mention the one quirky thing about the place. The owner is incapable of saying no to a Girl Scout, so the walls are stacked with boxes of cookies. If you have a sudden craving for Thin Mints or Tagalongs, head to 15th and whatever (right over I 25) and you’re covered.
RFD in Chinatown, DC. Over 5000 beers available, allegedly. I believe there may have even been an SDMB meet-up there a few years back.
There’s also Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring, MD. It was in the basement of a corner restaurant. Rumor has it it was once a Speakeasy during Prohibition. I believe it. Unfortunately the restaurant above had a fire in 2015 and they had to close but temporarily re-opened across the street in the former space of the infamous Piratz Tavern. I’m actually not sure if they’ve moved back yet I don’t go by there very often.
I was writing a post about Denver’s Highland neighborhood, but realized I’d be hijacking my own thread. Maybe I’ll start another thread in a different forum. Hoo-boy, that place is deliciously whacko.
To name some other unique bars in Atlanta, some of which I’ve been to, some I haven’t:
The Clermont - dive bar/strip club. Haven’t been here, was going to get a group to go during a conference in January, but it will be closed for renovations.
Porter Beer Bar excellent beer selection, but I hate dealing with Little Five Points, so I don’t go here often.
Brick Store This is my neighborhood bar, so to speak (I live about a mile from there, so reasonable walking distance). Great beer selection, good food (I’ve had some misses there, but that was me going with something I don’t usually like but thought I’d try).
There used to be a tiny little bar down the road that had a counter-top with 1000’s of pennies sealed in this thick, clear resin. All were heads-up, except two, I think. I played darts there.
The story was, this building was originally constructed for Marilyn Monroe as a “dressing room” for her last movie shoot, *“The Misfits”. *Can’t verify that, however.
Bar has since closed, then it was a realtor office, now it’s one of those fly-by-night churches.
I’m really curious what happened to that bar-o’pennies. Maybe I’ll wander down there some day…
Back when I was a mail/supply clerk, one of the other guys owned a roadhouse near the main gate of Andrews AFB. Place was like Bob’s Country Bunker in The Blues Brothers but with booths rather than very long tables and without the chicken wire. The building itself dated from around the turn of the 20[sup]th[/sup] Century and had been a bar prior to Prohibition, at which time it became a private club.
The last iteration of the bar had been established in 1940; my co-worker and his wife took over ownership in '78 when her father left it to them. They knew Donna Dixon and Dan Aykroyd through Donna’s father, who owned a similar roadhouse on Route 1. Dan even showed up one night and played a Blues Brothers set with the house band. Wish I had been there! I was in there a few times, once for an office party and at least twice with my eldest brother. Free food & free drinks for the party, free food and half-price drinks the rest of the time.
I was looking to move out of my brother’s apartment when the owners offered to let me stay in the second floor storage room in exchange for backing up the bouncers on weekends. This fell through when it was discovered that my living there would have violated zoning laws. Branch Avenue Metro Station was still a long way off, anyway.
I used to live in the Los Angeles area, and on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood is a venerable little Polynesian-style bar called the Tiki-Ti. They make their own homemade fruit syrups and serve unique, one-of-a-kind drinks made from their own recipes.
Their drinks are extremely delicious and cunningly deceptive. Their best one is called a “Ray’s Mistake”, and woe to anyone who has more than one or two of them.
It’s a funny, funky little joint and I miss it. Even though I don’t drink anymore, I still miss it.
Know it, miss it, too. Me and some buddies used to hang out in some similar joint in Chinatown called Rea-Me-Luu, (or something like that).
Place was a throw-back (or more likely, survivor) from the 40’s. Andrews Sisters on the juke box, little umbrellas in the drinks and a slightly sinister vibe that something seriously fucked-up was going on in the back room.
This was thirty years ago, now that I think about it…
For the latter category, a local place has only 2-3 beers on tap, but has a walk in fridge with hundreds of semi-obscure beers from around the world. You can carry out, but most take them to the bar and drink there.
I was originally going to post about The Bucket of Blood in Virginia City, but there isn’t much unique about it. Just a tourist trap bar in a tourist trap town.
In the late 1980s I visited The Brickskeller with some friends when I worked as a co-op student in Maryland. Nice place, and very much ahead of its time.