The Ideal Bar
What’s your ideal bar? 1
In Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, the character Dean Morarty (Neal Cassady) claims:
The ideal bar doesn’t exist in America. An ideal bar is something that’s gone beyond our ken. In nineteen-ten a bar was a place where men went to meet during or after work, and all there was was a long counter, brass sails, spittoons, player piano for music, a few mirrors, and barrels of whiskey at ten cents a shot together with barrels of beer at five cents a mug. Now all you get is chromium, drunken women, fags, hostile bartenders, anxious owners who hover around the door, worried about their leather seats and the law; just a lot of screaming at the wrong time and deadly silence when a stranger walks in.
My thoughts are that the ideal bar doesn’t try to be anything other than a bar.
The bar is an alternative social setting that provides alcoholic beverages and sometimes entertainment. It should be a welcoming, diversified establishment, without being overly decorated. Too much decor can defeat the purpose of it being a bar. If I spill something, I don’t want to feel bad about it.
I prefer a 2:1 female to male distribution (at least) to keep things lively. The large majority of my business network is male. I don’t need it to be the same way in the bar as well. I’m there for a reason.
None of that Cheers bullshit. I don’t want to know everyone in the bar, nor do I want to know everyone’s name. Part of the appeal of any social establishment, bar or otherwise, is the serendipity involved in meeting new people that you would otherwise not have the opportunity to speak with, or the courage to start a random conversation with.
An abundant selection of both domestic and foreign beer listen on a menu with both price and geographic origin. No fruity, vibrant colored, sugared down drinks that are mostly water being offered to me as “today’s special.” They are clearly served everyday, and there is usually nothing special about them.
A practiced deejay, preferably spinning vinyl, playing an eclectic mix of old and new tunes varying in genre. The “average” music listener should only recognize a maximum of 40% of the tracks. The rest should be either mash-ups, b-sides or simply rare excerpts. There should never be a specified 80s night. If there is a band playing, they are allowed up to, but no more than, one 80s cover.
A consistent supply of bar snacks (pretzels, peanuts, etc.), with the option to order actual bar food. I understand keeping the kitchen open can be burdensome on the staff, so keeping the bar open to 12:00 is acceptable.
No doorman with his “clipboard,” which is usually an empty piece of computer paper anyway. The bar should automatically except a diversified crowd of ages and gender, without one person dictating the flow of personality that decides to enter. The only rule I can think of for exile while in the bar is fighting and / or too much cologne, decided by majority vote according to the current patrons
An equal separation of bar activities, including, but limited to, pool, darts, foosball, air hockey and karaoke. This limits the guy playing pool from jamming the back of his pool stick into your ribs every time he decides to take his turn. If karaoke is an option at the bar, all songs by Journey and Fleetwood Mac post-19772 should be banned.
The bar should have active and sufficient air control. A sweaty environment, in most cases, automatically makes everything less fun.
No credit car minimums. How I decide to give a bar my money should be up to me.
And finally, a one-word, catchy name. I don’t want to have to say it more than once when I’m giving directions, or spell it wrong and type it more than once if it’s through text message. Von in New York is a perfect name.
What’s your ideal bar?
- I’m experimenting with different writing styles and themes, just to mix things up. Plus, I wanted to reference that quote from On The Road. [↩]
- Everything after Rumours is awful. [↩]
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