Downtown Huntington Beach, Ca. is turning into a mini-Miami Beach. Lots of posh apartments and fancy hotels going up. Along Main St., there’s a lot of bars and restaurants, of course. Locals, like me, go to Killarney’s Irish Pub. $6.50 breakfast and lunch specials. Eggs Benedict just now, and Friday it’ll be a delicious chicken avocado sandwich…for the price of a shitty fast-food deal at McDonald’s.
They play a pretty cool mix of indie and classic rock. Even if a shitty Green Day or RHCP’s song comes on, I know the next one will be better. The music is good. Can’t be your favorite pub if the music sucks, eh?
[massive sexist remark alert] Plus, I get to watch 18-year-old-girls from Oklahoma, in skimpy outfits walk up and down the street. [/alert] You can’t beat that. But, I’m willing to hear your arguments.
It’s impossible for a good pub to show sport. It’s a clear either/or scenario. A TV instantly encourages rubbernecking and destroys the feel and vibe of a pub.
One of Derby’s haunted pubs. One of them has a room that’s literally called The Chamber of Horrors. It’s not open to the public, but one of the lounges rests right above it, and apparently sometimes you can hear screams from below, but these days it’s never quiet enough. Another one has a skeleton in the corner.
There’s also a place in Bolton called The Man and Scythe, which is one of the oldest pubs in England. They play good music (70s hard rock - Hendrix & Rory Gallagher nights!) and there’s actual video footage of spectral activity. I’ve sat in the chair that features in said video.
I like a lot of places in Liverpool and Manchester but for different, less supernatural reasons.
No food, no bands, no sport. Two mid-terrace houses knocked through. Lots of rooms to go and hide in. A quiz on a Monday night that you always avoid. A big, fluffy, bored dog. Local beers, nothing from too far away. Seabrook crisps. 35ml measures on spirits. A grumpy landlord who you’re never quite sure how to talk to, so you don’t. A dartboard. A small and curious selection of books. Hundreds of ancient beer bottles, covered in dust, lined up around the ceiling. A garden for the summer. A fair to middling chance you’ll bump into someone you went to school with. A fruit machine that no one plays.
A good way to tell if a pub is bigotless: When you enter, the pianist doesn’t abruptly cut the ragtime with an atonal minor note, plunging the room into stony hostile silence.