Bar #13 - Yong San Lounge

The final bar of the evening was Yong San Lounge. I'd walked past here a bunch of times and always thought it looked like a good place to drop in. The bar used to be called the Drift Inn, and was known as the hangout for conspiracy theorist, and author of the Gemstone Files, Bruce Roberts. This guy must have been "fun" to have a drink with.

So, we shuffled in the door and the bartender, a friendly middle-aged asian woman, scuttled some of the regulars from their barstools and ushered us up to the freshly cleared seats. They had little plates of nuts and chocolates on the bar, and after a bit, she brought out fried chicken and egg rolls and placed those on little plates in front of us as well. The bar had a fairly typical beer selection, made run-of-the-mill cocktails and had an active pool table in the back. The bar decor is straight out of the 70's and little has changed inside since then. Unfortunately, the padded arm rest at the bar was torn to bits and had been 'repaired' maybe 5 years ago with about 200 rolls of reddish-pink electrical tape: sticky. I had read somewhere online that the bar was a hangout for escorts and prostitutes and surely some of the ladies there were. Nothing in your face, mind you, but women a little too dressed up in dresses a little too small.

Anyway, more of our friends showed up and we kind of took over a better part of the bar. It was a fun place to hang out, and the waitstaff was nothing but friendly and genuinely interested in keeping you there with your wallet open. It makes me think the woman running the bar is most likely the owner as well. We had a few pints here and then moved on to Nob Hill Tavern to play some pool/darts ourselves. As we've been there many times, it won't be counted in the talley, but that's where we ended the night.

Josh, Julia and Kathy

Molly, Lisa and Rick

Mark and Ryan

Yong San Lounge, 895 Bush Street

Bar #12 - Chelsea Place

The third bar of the night was Chelsea Place, where we met up with our friends Mark and Kathy. Walking in, I instantly liked the place: really dark with original wood panelling and high ceilings. It seemed like the space had been a bar for a very long time. The bartender quickly pointed out that there was a table in the back, and ushered us over to it, quite possibly the only time that I've been officially seated in a dive bar. The place was mostly empty, populated only with a few local hipsters, but it was pretty early. There was a fireplace in the back, but even on one of the coldest nights of the year, it remained unlit.

So, comfortably seated with my mug of beer, I was just starting to tell Molly how much I liked the place, when she extracted some bizzare insect from her cocktail. Apparently it wasn't big enough to warrant sending the drink back, because Molly (being the trooper that she is) drank it down anyway.



The biggest problem (other than the wildlife) that we found with this bar though was the language barrier. All three employees spoke fairly little English, which as long as it doesn't hamper the ordering of a beverage, makes no difference to me. Unfortunately, it did make a difference when it came to Kathy's lemon drop. I'm not sure what "lemon drop" translated to behind the bar, but whatever it was, it came back in a salt rimmed glass. Kathy tried to power through it, but not only was it strange, it was undrinkable as well. So much so that Kathy, who's pretty shy and doesn't like sending stuff back, asked for another drink. I don't know much about international custom, but I would imagine that if you send a drink back in another country because it sucks, you would get a replacement free of charge. Unfortunately, they came back with another cocktail for Kathy and politely said "that will be $5". Strike three, and off we went.

Chelsea Place, 641 Bush Street

Bar #11 - Red's Place

You could hear the record scratch and the music stop when the three of us walked into Red's Place. Clearly a locals bar, and by locals I mean Chinese immigrants. Once we got in and seated though, the sparse crowd lost interest and returned to smoking their cigarettes and watching the Chinese television station. The bartender was very friendly, if not a bit stunned that we were there.

The atmosphere is little more than what you'd find in a relative's basement bar; dark, unpretentious boarding on messy, but comfortable enough. They had a few countertop video game machines and a strange pinball machine that the locals were crowded around. The most interesting thing about the place might be the bathroom. Located down in the basement, accessing it involved navigating a narrow stair, ducking under a low ceiling, then climbing an uneven step and ramp to get to the toilet. Not really what I'd call acessible.

Red's Place, 672 Jackson Street

Bar #10 - Mr. Bing's

After slices of Pizza, Molly, Josh and I decided to start the night off on the edge of North Beach, and work our way back down towards the Tenderloin. I'd had my eye on Mr. Bings for a while, frankly because it has such a damn catchy name. The place always seemed to be a locals joint to me, with older men slumped over half full glasses of cheap whiskey every time I peeked through the windows. It certainly had all of that ambiance in reality, but the 6:30 friday night crowd was a bit more racuous than that.

The space inside is pretty tight, and hasn't been redone since it opened 40 some years ago. There is basically a large triangular bar, with enough room between the bar and the walls for a stool and small aisle. It was packed when we arrived, which only takes about 20 people. The service was good, and being right on Columbus, it was nice to be able to look out the large windows and watch the goings-on. Overall, it was a pretty typical dive, but I would stop in again for a drink if it wasn't crowded.

Mr. Bing's Cocktail Lounge, 201 Columbus Avenue

Bar #9 - The Knockout

We got rallied into a Sunday night dinner out, so we decided to knockout (get it?!?) another bar from the list. Finally, a bar that I would come back to! They have lots of good beer on tap and the best name ever for a cocktail (of which Molly could not get enough): the "Absolut Manberry". After reading the name, everything else said sounded dirty for the next 20 minutes. Try it and see!

The bar itself is a great space decorated with album covers, photos of Chicagoland gangsters and miscellanious car parts. They have one of those coin operated photo booths, which we should have used to take some group pictures but didn't. The bar was dimly lit, had plenty of seating and had great music on. It might be a bit more crowded on weekends, but it was comfortably dead on Sunday. While there, we found out that another friend of ours, Tim, does sushi catering there on Wednesdays (plug, plug, check it out).

Suzanne, Mary, Josh and Molly at the Front Porch afterwards

The Knockout, 3223 Mission Street

Bar #8 - Fuse

50 bars in 50 weeks? What about 50 bars in one week?! We really got to way more bars than I would ever have imagined for the first night. And the fact that I'm alive and typing the next morning (well, afternoon) is really quite amazing to me.

The final (sort of) bar for the evening was Fuse, directly across the street from the Sake Lab. From the outside, the bar seemed like it would be some kind of hipster hangout, but inside it was the clearly the seediest place we'd been in. I literally had to wade thru the bathroom! Everyone was trashed at this point; Molly was slurring her speech and pushed her mostly full cosmo over my way, Paul was beginning to look green and Melissa started the 'who wants to share a cab' dialog. Josh and I seemed to be holding up the best, but I was winding down too. Anway, there was nothing interesting about this place. It had the character of a bar in a spring break city, just there to make a buck without creating any waves.

Molly, Melissa and Paul decided to head out, but Josh and I were in the middle of a conversation, so we decided we'd head next door to the Crow Bar for one last pint. As we've been to the Crow Bar tons of times, we can't count it as bar #9, but I for one was ready to go someplace familiar with a decent jukebox. North Beach was turning into the regular 1:00am 'police state' as we staggered down to our final destination. There were paddywagons all over the place, cops on motorcycles, cops on the corners, cops in parked cop cars. I would have taken a few photos, but a friend of ours got taken to the drunk tank once for less, so we got off the sidewalk and into the bar quickly before we got caught up in something. We had one last drink and closed the place down.

8 new bars on the first night! It looks like 50 will be a piece of cake!

Last ones standing

Fuse, 493 Broadway

Bar #7 - Sake Lab Lounge

That we would even step foot in this place is a testament to how dead it was in North Beach. The 6+ drinks in everybody at that point probably had a little to do with our lack of reluctance as well. The bouncers were out front trying to entice people to come in, and after negotiating a no-cover entry, in we went. Basically this place is a low budget dance club masquerading as high style. The crappy house music was blasting, but we were literally the only 5 people in the bar, so it was tolerable. The space was covered wall, floor and ceiling with metallic silver surfaces and blue lighting. It was decked out with 60's style plastic furniture, plenty of poorly executed ball chain curtains and glowing red table lamps. After we decided that we'd never be coming back here, we ran around like fools taking photos of ourselves. It was really a liberating feeling to make the realization that we truly didn't care what the tools that work there thought! Around 11pm, the regular crowd started shuffling in and dancing, so we finished up our drinks and slid out the door.

Melissa and Josh modding out

Molly and Josh having an h2h

Sake Lab Lounge, 498 Broadway