Is a Bar More than the Sum of Its Customers?
Saturday night we went to a new bar in our hood. We won't name the bar but let's just say it's brand new, replacing a bar that was only around for like a year, in a spot that once held a bar we absolutely adored back in the day. We were kind of curious to check it out as, well, we like bars. And also because it was owned by people who are hot and under 40 and if the people who owned it are "hot" how could we not go? That'll make us hot too. Besides, the ones named owned most of their kind of upscale bars in places that are not the Mission so we wanted to see how they could bring upscale chic to downscale 16th Street.
We got there early and noticed that the place had the same sort of feel as the previous bars-- long bar with tables in the center in front of couches but that it was cleaned up. Really nicely in fact. But we also noticed that the theme of the bar was 80's hip-hop. You know, Adidas and kangol caps and boom boxes and crack. The theme was made apparent by photos everywhere in the bar and a large boom box that was above the bar. We couldn't help notice, however, that the bar had no actual resemblance to early 80's hip-hop other than a name and pictures. There was no graffiti, for example. And decorated in brown. Not to mention that it was fairly upscale. In other words, not a place one would picture Run DMC getting tricky at.
But whatever-- the drinks were stiff and we got there early enough to get a place on the couch in the center of the place. The music wasn't bad (all hip hop, but good hip hop) and there was a good vibe, helped along by several groups of birthday people celebrating with friends.
As we drank (and drank) we looked up and right in front of us was this big dude with a pink Lacosse shirt and a green sweater wrapped around his shoulders. He was wearing golf-pants too. Several minutes later we discovered another dude, this time wearing a button-down shirt and he also had his nice sweater (we're guessing from Abercrombie and Fitch) wrapped around his shoulder.
Now one guy with a sweater wrapped around his shoulder is one too many. Two? Well that is just unacceptable. Can a bar ever be considered cool if it's populated by preppy sweater wrappers? Say what you will about dive bars, but none of those people would ever, ever wrap a sweater around their shoulders. Unless they meant to be ironic, of course.
But it got worse. To the right of us was this dude who looked exactly like Thom Yorke, except without the weird eye thing. He knew he looked like Thom too because he had his hair all spiky. Then, much to our surprise, somewhere along the night, he too put a sweater and wrapped it around his shoulder. We were shocked, flabbergasted. After all, Thom would never wear a sweater around his shoulder. Hell, Radiohead exists mainly to not be the kind of band that would wear sweaters around their shoulders. Or even be listened to by people who wear sweaters around their shoulders. And if they were, they'd release another album of ambient noise and indecipherable lyrics just to spite them.
So we ask you, is it possible to be a good bar if it's frequented by sweater wearing types? Can the parts be less than it's parts? Can the bar be redeemed?
We mean, we still had a good time and all but we do have our reputations to think of.