Tag: cocktails

On August 1, Streets of London opened their full bar. That’s right, full bar. Prior to Tuesday, only beer and wine flowed through the jolly, unwashed customers of the local watering hole. But now every reveler can bask in the glory of cosmos and lemondrops while listening to the Stones on the jukebox. Don’t expect Tom Cruise and Brian Brown behind the bar just yet, though. Information gleaned from my last visit (including the comment from one of the bartenders, “Is Crown Royal whiskey or Scotch?”) indicates that the lovely barmaids still prefer the ales and lagers to the multi jiggered cocktails. So, things might change a little at the convivial joint, but odds are most things will stay the same (especially if they continue to fry everything, including the cocktails, in the same oil they’ve been using since the Clinton administration).

Got together with some pals for post-work drinks at Bandera. While it had been about a year since I had last clinked glasses there, it seemed pretty much the same. The big rectangular bar is ideal for people watching. Or flirting. Not so great for finding a seat when it’s crowded, but that makes customer interaction all the more likely.

I asked the bartender who she thought made up Bandera’s clientele. She told me an interesting tale:

Several years ago it was the college crowd who monopolized the bar/restaurant, which wasn’t the demographic Bandera was going for. So, they started to close the bar at early, to discourage the late night/early morning, age-21-ish crowds. They also started requiring entree orders to sit at the tables – including the ones in the bar area (and they still do that) to get rid of hanging-outters in favor of actual restaurant patrons.
Continue reading “How do you pick your favorite watering hole?”

KCRA.com reports that Chico State has canceled the remainder of its 2006 softball season after a high school recruit was admitted to a hospital for an alcohol overdose. Glad to see that dry campus thing is going well.

Which reminds me…while there has been a ban on alcohol at sporting events on California State University campuses, our own Sacramento State has decided to stay wet.

The fact that Sac State will continue to allow the sale of alcohol on campus is good news for students who enjoy washing down their pizza with a beer.

Amen.

From Graswich today I read that the restrooms at Mason’s have 1 set of sinks and mirrors to be shared by men and women. Graswich’s reader, a female, understandably brings up only the makeup issue, but that’s part of a larger issue here: separating the “business side” of the restroom from the sink and mirror means that when you exit the “business” wing it’s clear, you know, what you’ve been doing in there. The great thing about restaurant restrooms is supposed to be that they are multipurpose–powder room, shirt-tucking checkroom, middle-of-horrible date face wash and/or hair pat-down station, in addition to the infamous #1 and #2 that everybody knows takes place in there but thankfully when you exit, no questions are asked. In other words, ew gross, Mason’s! Where do you think we are?

Rumor has it that Paragary’s K-Bar is closed as of today. First, I must admit I’ve never been to K-Bar. I know it was the it-spot for the nightlife crowd when it first opened, and also heard it was a quality place for post-work cocktails. Hmmm. It also had a decent location smack-dab in the middle of the downtown/midtown area. So, any theories on why it closed?

Did it suck?
Or are Sac-town cocktailers all about the new hotspots?