There's something to be said for the security of any Saturday night when you can look around and think back ten years and realize the bar had a different name, the bar was in a different state, the hot chick and the drunk guys you're with have different names, and you damn well live and breathe and it is Saturday and you're at your local bar with at least one hot chick and a couple of drunk guys. Here are my local bars, to date.
Buffalo Wild Wings
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
July 2002 - January 2003
I turned 21 during finals week and then was home until July. So Buffalo Wild Wings became our first local bar. I can't explain why at all, but for some reason everyone in Ohio loves going to Buffalo Wild Wings and that's where you'd call from if you wanted them to go out. Those were also the days when people answered their phones and those were also the days when if you were calling to get a crew for $1 beers you'd have one. These are just days.
The $1 ladies' night used to be the best because there would be one chick there buying $1 beers for all of us guys there. You then had to find a new chick the following week because even though it was our money, chicks just aren't accustomed to (and don't like) having to order every three minutes. I stopped going to this bar because we ran out of chicks we knew who were 21, beers on Ladies' Night are like $4.50 if you're a guy, and we could no longer afford to go to the bar.
Commune
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
February 2003 - June 2003
Most of my readers have never drank at the good old commune at 2476 Euclid Heights, but enough have and they would agree with me on one point: You don't need to go out when you drink there.
The Baldwin House
Coopersburg, Pennsylvania
June 2003 - March 2004
My girlfriend worked at this bar and I would drop her off and pick her up and hear all of her bar stories. I got engaged to her on the advice of a guy who had just walked out of this bar. I knew who he was and assumed this married psychiatrist/research chemist/farmer/Penn professor/drunk would have good relationship advice. I'm not saying he didn't, I'm just saying I should have kept in touch.
Anyway, the Baldwin House opened in 1856 and by late 2003 was struggling. Now the only female bartender was engaged. The place closed less than 90 days later and we moved back to Ohio.
Commune
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
March 2004 - June 2004
Most of my readers have never lived at the good old commune at 2476 Euclid Heights, but enough have and they would agree with me on one point: You don't need to go out when you live there.
Picnic's
Brooklyn, Ohio
July 2004 - September 2005
I can't imagine we lived in Brooklyn very long before we were at Picnic's. Brooklyn is a respectable working class town, near the interstate, and a good place to raise a family. Our family was three drunk guys, a dog, and one or two hot chicks depending on the night. I'm not saying we fit in at Picnic's. I'm saying Brooklyn is a town of 10,000 people and we fit in better there than anywhere else.
The bartenders liked us, they didn't talk to us, and we ran a tab and didn't keep track of our tab. There were enough Sunday mornings where I woke up at home next to my girlfriend, thought "Awesome," checked my credit card statement, and 20 dollars looked like a pretty good deal overall for two of us for the previous night. Fifteen of it was probably tip. One time some guy insulted that girl in that parking lot by yelling "Hey you, you fucking hippie." He had a decent point.
I once had friends visiting from Chicago, D.C., and Phoenix. I brought them to this bar whose sign read "IC NIC'S UB AND GRILL." They were not impressed.
Picnic's had the only karaoke night I ever legitimately enjoyed. I don't sing karaoke but there was another Brian there who rocked it. I stopped going because we moved a mile away to Parma, we typically walked to the bar, so Picnic's was no longer local. It's now McG's Pub and Grub and I hear the new owners ruined the place.
Parma Tavern
Parma, Ohio
October 2005 - February 2006
My housemate got a girlfriend and my girlfriend did not like hearing those two have sex. Fair point, so we got a one-bedroom place in Parma once the lease ended. When you work in shipping, it is nice seeing this particular shining beacon from your living room window. You know that there's at least one day this week when you don't work in shipping and you're pretty likely to be at Parma Tavern the night before, be that night Friday or Saturday.
The thing about Parma Tavern is there's really nothing to say. We lived in Parma for five months and only went out once a week and sometimes had Cavs tickets, so we would have only been there maybe 15 times. Still, that's enough that at most bars something notable would have happened. I don't think I ever got a free drink, I don't think I was overcharged, I don't think anyone there made a fool of themselves and if they did it wasn't me. Perhaps it was better in those days to go out and have nothing notable happen.
Slice of Life
Wilmington, North Carolina
March 2006 - September 2007
Cleveland is so damn cold that the dream of more than a few people living in Cleveland is to someday move to Florida or North Carolina or some shit like that. One day we woke up in Cleveland in March, it was winter, and the next day we lived by the beach and it was spring. UNC-Wilmington was playing in the NCAA tournament so we ventured downtown to find a place to watch.
That was Friday of our first week in town and we met a nice middle-aged couple who took us under their wing for the night. The next time there, we met a really drunk, really old, really rich guy who would take us out and buy us literally $100 in drinks and try to steal my girlfriend. Our bartender Matt was from Pennsylvania like most of our bartenders in that town.
Slice of Life has around four tables and maybe 14 stools. If this place sounds small you're thinking along the right lines, but don't think that I never had to call the people I was meeting to ask where they were because I was at Slice of Life and they were at Slice of Life and I could not see them and they could not see me. They also serve food after they stop serving drinks, which is helpful on nights of that nature.
My friends who hadn't liked Picnic's didn't believe me about the quality of women who drank at my bar in Wilmington. But Picnic's is nowhere near the ocean and nowhere near a state school in the University of North Carolina system. This one stopped being my local because by September 2007 it was high time to move back to Pennsylvania.
AOL Instant Messenger
Emmaus, Pennsylvania
September 2007 - August 2008
I was working 56 hour weeks and saving for law school and also, no chick was dumb enough to want to go out except for the one I rejected for being an 18-year-old lesbian. I didn't think that one would have lasted long term and I have come around too late to thinking it's a chance you get once at most and maybe should take. That being said, I drank once a month for this year and it was in a chat room. When you drink in a chat room with Laura, you don't drink alone. That's true no matter how much your parents might think you drink alone.
Hemingway's
Pittsburgh (Oakland)
August 2008 - May 2011
I'm not sure what other law schools have to offer. Some of them, I hear, are legitimately good at teaching people the law. It depends what classes you take but Pitt was often not that good in that particular area.
Nonetheless, I can't imagine all that many law schools have a bar across the street where it's $5 pitchers of Yuengling or Miller Lite, all day, every day. And I can't imagine how Pitt graduates all that many students with that being the case.
One time I was forced to drink a Blue Moon at this place. Blue Moon girls showed up. Did anyone know Blue Moon even has girls? The one asked me if I liked Blue Moon and I said "No." She asked why and I said, "Because it tastes like someone poured orange juice in my beer." My friend and I accepted their offer of free Blue Moon.
When one starts studying anything at Pitt, one should accept the first offer to go to Hem's with colleagues. One should proceed in that manner until the day after graduation. That's how we rolled.
Green Front
Pittsburgh (South Side)
May 2011 - April 2012
By the time I lived on the South Side, I just couldn't go out on the South Side anymore. People go out on the South Side to break up, throw up, or get in fights. I don't fight, I don't throw up, and I either had no one to break up with or didn't want to break up at a South Side bar. Luckily there was Green Front.
Going to Green Front is not going out and I can't explain why not. You might leave there at 2 a.m. and have breakfast there at 8 a.m. the next morning, but you had not gone out either of those times.
I never go home with a woman I just met at a bar. I don't think it's a good idea. The one time I accepted such an offer it was at Green Front, I had asked where home is, and the woman had said, "Across the street." We only had to walk less than 100 feet and she still got stopped by the cops for something on the way back. I just kept walking. The Pittsburgh police don't do much to help you out with the chicks.
Lou's
Pittsburgh (Bloomfield)
May 2012 - July 2012
The first time I was ever at Lou's is a good story. This was 2009, we had been at Silky's, and you know those times when you see a drunk guy and are just shocked anyone could possibly be this drunk? The guy was Will, Will is from Michigan and knows my friend Ryan, and that explains it totally. I wound up joining a group that was later kicked out of Lou's because Will, from the moment he walked in, was yelling "WU-TANG, WU-TANG..." at the top of his lungs. Once Will was finally outside, he looked at the door in shock, shook his head, and said softly, "I guess that bar isn't down with the Wu-Tang Clan."
Lou's is like Cheers except that instead of everyone being charismatic and funny, no one is charismatic or funny. It's a good summer bar because they have an outdoor patio which isn't visible from the main drag. Other than my apartment I don't think anywhere else in Bloomfield that has that. I also do believe I have seen more hot lesbian hookups on Lou's patio than in my apartment.
Howlers
Pittsburgh (Bloomfield)
August 2012 - Present
An interesting thing about living in Bloomfield is that even though Shadyside is one mile away, no one is coming the one mile to go out in Bloomfield. I had previously lived in Bloomfield for two years and either didn't know anyone who drank in Bloomfield or didn't know they drank in Bloomfield. So I would buy 12-packs of PBR at Howlers from Beth. I don't think I ever so much as drank one beer at Howlers in those two years.
Howlers recently became my local bar when we rented an apartment three doors away. We did not rent this apartment coincidentally.
Howlers books bands most nights. You'd think they'd be all local but quite a few come from pretty far away to play our little gem of a dive. Zach's band plays there and is good; the others are mostly not. But the bands bring out interesting crowds. My favorite was the night when to fit in, you had to be wearing blue denim and black. I was wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans so you'd think I'd be good. I looked like a total horseshit person because clearly anyone with class and musical taste that night was wearing black pants and a blue denim jacket. I don't think I even got in.
Needless to say, I prefer the interesting crowd that's in the front room. Let's say someone texts to ask what you're doing with whom and you respond with something such as "PBR with Matty, Tommy, Kristy, Biffie, Mark, Adam, Joe, Sue, Colin, the hot chick whose name I forget, a couple other chicks, and whoever else shows up." Your out-of-town friend will think you found a house party on a Wednesday, but you are certainly at Howlers.
Copyright 2013 Brian Schwartz / Cannot reprint
