A Girl Walks Into A Bar
The art of buying a round at Side Bar?
By Moira MuldoonWeb posted: March 9, 2005
My thighs have hurt for four days. Kumar Pallana, my father's old yoga teacher and current favorite in the Wes Anderson-Owen Wilson film universe, put me through the yoga paces last week when he was in town. Actually, he mostly just showed me the paces (you should do this 100, 200 times he said after we got through 20 arm-swinging, deep knee-bending movements) and now my legs are stiffer than a British upper lip. Yowzers, Batman, I thought yoga was about peaceful, relaxing stretching and breathing. But nothing about Kumar's workout helped me relax. For some things, you just have to go to bars.
Lately I've been hanging out in hangouts, low-key, relaxed bars where the drinks are mildly priced, the jukeboxes contain whiffs of high-school/college nostalgia, and tables are just right for two or three people to have silly or thoughtful conversations.
The Side Bar, located right behind Elysium on Seventh Street, is a new addition to the Red River world and feels like it belongs to the Casino-Lovejoy's-Deville triumvirate. It's got a wry, ironic side: The first Thursday of every month is moustache night when all bartenders, women included, wear sweeping 'staches and patrons are invited to do the same. It's got a hipster tenor: Hong Kong action films have been known to karate chop their way across the pair of TV screens. And the jukebox was good enough to make comrade in arms Briante debate between staying at the bar for one more drink and going to Casino El Camino for a burger. (My stomach won out over Modest Mouse, Neil Diamond and Edith Piaf.)
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Side Bar. 602 E. Seventh St., 322-0697. |
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Early evenings the place seems pretty quiet. The various weeknights I stopped in, including a Friday, there weren't more than 10 people hanging out for happy hour. But around 11 or so, including one Tuesday, the Side Bar seems to start filling up with mostly alternative types, mostly in their mid- to late 20s. Mostly.
It made for excellent people-watching -- I always marvel at people whose tattoos stretch across their legs, marvel at the level of commitment to a single design -- but there are advantages to arriving early. The drinks are cheap. M-F happy hour starts when they open at 6 p.m. and runs till 8, and a bottle of beer'll set you back about a buck-seventy-five. The stuff on tap (Guinness, Shiner, Live Oak, Independence and Lone Star) isn't discounted, but most call drinks are a buck off. As a result, buying a round is quite reasonable.
And round-buying is important. Long ago, I shared an apartment with a Frenchman who talked about buying rounds as promises: If you buy tonight, then we must see each other again so that I may return the favor. I always liked that idea of promise, even when it was my turn to buy. Perhaps especially when it was my turn to buy. The world just feels right when we take turns buying drinks, when we make implicit promises to spend time together.
'A Girl Walks into a Bar ...' alternates with Jonathon Goodsell's 'Night Moves.' Please visit the 'A Girl Walks into a Bar ...' archive for more reviews. Contact Moira at bargirl@covad.net.
