RIP Chow – we barely knew ye.

Sadly, the first bar we officially reviewed in our inaugural issue has closed its doors forever. We hope you took heed to our first newsletter and sampled some of their most excellent concoctions. We’re not sure what Chow’s demise means to foodies, but to boozies this is crushing. For us, Chow was the bar that set the bar. Some of the best, most inventive drinks in town were served up with the same care and attention to detail a master chef would put in his dishes. Thanks to one and all at Chow for setting a new standard in town and opening our eyes to what a proper drink should be. One of your Earl Grey martinis might help dull our grief – if we knew where to get one. More about this tragic event here.

Public Lounge Eatery

3289 Main St. – 604-873-5584 - www.publiclounge.ca - Map

Sigh. This is another one of those places with great potential that, for whatever reason, is just…meh. They’ve got a prime location (Main & 17th) in probably the most vibrant ‘hood after Commercial Drive, but it was about as exciting as sipping sherry at Grandma’s house while she tells you a hilarious story about waffles. OK, maybe that’s a little harsh. It is, after all, more of a restaurant than a bar. And it’s not a bad place, there just wasn’t anything about it that made us want to go back.

They’ve got a pretty extensive drinks menu, but again, nothing exactly blew us away. Martini’s hover around the $7 mark, which isn’t bad, but they weren’t anything to write Dean Martin about. Like the Bombay Sour (Bombay Sapphire gin, sour apple, lime) – it wasn’t sour. Too many sweet liqueurs in their ‘tinis in general. Their champagne cocktails ($6 - $8) are a little more inventive, like the Kir Royale (Crème de Cassis and champagne), but again all pretty sweet. The Morning Haze, for instance – Peach Schnapps, Blue Curacao, cranberry juice and champagne. Jesus, you can feel the insulin shock coming on just reading that?

There’s a so-so selection of domestics beers on tap for $4.75 – Russell, OK Springs, Sleeman – and they’ve got the usual imports - Guinness, Stella, Czechvar to name a few - but there’s always something so disappointing when you unwittingly order one thinking it’s draught, and a bottle arrives at the table. It’s like asking for that Millenium Falcon for Christmas when you’re a kid, and then your parents hand you a similar sized box and say “Yeah, we got you those pants you really need”. Wow, hope you didn’t put yourselves out.

Despite its name, Public Lounge wasn’t particularly lively, loungey, or social. Ah well, maybe this is where hipster kids go to die.

“one of those places with great potential”

Pat’s Pub (Pink Elephant and Grease ‘n Grind)

403 E. Hastings St. - 604-874-7906 - www.patspub.ca - Map

Never in a million years would we have thought you’d find a bar you’d actually want to frequent in this “less savoury” part of town. But Pat’s Pub proved us wrong. It’s a little oasis of civility in the war zone that is Main & Hastings. Even the old Patricia Hotel, in which the pub resides, looks oddly out of place. And by that we mean it looks clean. Once you can get past the stigma of the area, and the crazies and heroin zombies, you’ll be glad you did.

This is what we’d call an honest little pub – no qualms, no airs, and no douchebags. It is what it is, and it’s good – exposed brick walls, old wood floors, cool layout, nice servers and best of all, probably the best beer for your buck we’ve found yet. Pints of “Pat’s Classic Lager” for $3.75 – another huge surprise, they have their own on-site micro-brewery, and a damn tasty brew they brew.

They pour a decent selection of domestic beers – Tree, Big Rock, R&B – all for around the $5 mark. And what the cocktails and highballs might lack in originality (the usual rum & coke, G&T’s etc), they more than make up for in price – singles for under $5 and doubles for around $6! And they don’t skimp on the sauce either.

But Pat’s isn’t just about the cheap drinks, it’s about the nights – specifically Pink Elephant and Grease ‘n Grind. If you loved the lounge scene of the early nineties, it’s back for an encore in the form of the Pink Elephant (second Saturday of every month). Throw on your swankiest retro cocktail attire and chill out or cha-cha to swingin’ hi-fi classics.

If you dig rockabilly, hot-rods, and Betty Page, check out Grease ‘n Grind (last Saturday of every month) complete with live bands, local vendors, and a parking lot full of chop-top ‘rods that looks like a scene from Rebel Without a Cause.

Make the effort folks, it’s places like this that keep this city real.

“this is what we’d call an honest little pub”

Space Lounge

UPDATE: This dump is gone. See? Good things DO happen to shit bars.

1149 Granville St. – 604-568-7842 - www.spaceloungeinc.com - Map

Holy Christ. Ever walked into an establishment and the first words out of your mouth are “What the hell?” So it went with Space Lounge. It’s Friday evening and we’re prowling the Granville strip, Vancouver’s train-wreck of “bar culture”, looking for new places to check out when we spot this oddity’s blue neon glow from across the street. Hey, from the name and what we can see, we figure this place might be a kitschy gem of a find. But as we enter, we’re greeted by a hostess who asks us if we have an appointment. “For what?” we ask? A root canal? Keep in mind the joint is emptier than outer space itself. “Oh, I mean a reservation”. Alas, her self-correcting is too late, the damage is done, and the tone is set for the Space Lounge experience – Houston, we have total confusion.

Space Lounge is a…well, we don’t know what it’s supposed to be – futuristic cocktail lounge, retro theme bar, gathering place for alcoholic cosmonauts? What? It’s got potential, and if this was L.A. or Vegas, it’d be done right – servers in silver spacesuits, stills from 2001 A Space Odyssey, drinks served in foil bags, Buzz Aldrin working the bar. As it stands, Zodiac signs on the walls and Cuban hip-hop don’t really say “final frontier” to us At LEAST fork out for a dry ice machine, fer cryin’ out loud.

And the drink situation didn’t exactly redeem the place. There’s a few drinks on the menu with “space-inspired” names, but that’s about it – unless bored NASA technicians invented the blueberry mojito. There were only two (!?!) beers on tap, served in what we can only described as over-priced, over-sized, under-filled test tubes. And bottles of local ale ran for – wait for it – an ‘out-of-this-world’ (ha ha) seven bucks each. As one of our fellow drinkonauts summed it up “I don’t feel like I’m in space, or a lounge”.

“gathering place for alcoholic cosmonauts?”

The Narrow Lounge

3rd & Main - www.narrowlounge.com - Map

Every now and then you come across a place that redeems our fair city and proves there’s more to Vancouver than superficial poser garbage (see Space Lounge article).

With no actual sign other than a small sandwich board on the street corner and a red light above the entrance, it’s not the most obvious place, but more than worth the venture. This is the closest thing you’ll find to an actual speakeasy (sketchy ‘after-hours’ excluded). Open the heavy steel door under the red glow, head down the stairs, through a second heavy door, and you’re in what we think is the best bar we’ve found yet.

Yup, it’s narrow alright, and small (but not claustropobic) with a sort of old world, bohemian feel too it. The antlers on the wall are the icing on the cake. And it’s always the little details we appreciate, like coat hooks under the bar. But on to the drinks. Let’s just say they don’t skimp on the sauce here. Our accommodating bartender of the night, Ezra (who like any bartender worth his salt, always gives your mix a little taste test), served up wicked cocktails like the Bramble (gin, lemon, sugar, cassis), the Obamanation (spiced rum, ginger beer, pineapple, lime), the Thin Lizzy (gin, cassis, grapefruit), and Moscow Mule (vodka, citrus, ginger beer) - all around the $9 mark. Plus they’ve got a bourbon sour that’ll knock you on your ass.

There’s a good selection of R&B ales on tap, Strongbow, and a nice little collection of unusual import beers by the bottle (like Boris Beer). Mondays are $4.75 pint nights, and Wednesdays $3.50 highball night with tunes courtesy of DJ Dickey Doo.

Oh yes, we have found a new mistress, and her name is Narrow Lounge.

“the closest thing you’ll find to an actual speakeasy”

The Plaza (now “The Venue”)

881 Granville Street - 604.646.0064 - www.plazaclub.net - Map

We’re not going to be reviewing nightclubs, per se. But since we went to this one to see a band, and there’s a bar in there, here goes:

You should probably expect to get fucked over in a dump like this, but at $6.75 for a bottle of local beer, they should at least extend you the courtesy of a reach-around and a little cuddling afterwards. At least the band was good.

“At least the band was good”