Downtown Bar

[HKG]

There are so many projects downtown and good topics discussing them. Notice, though, that most of the topics discuss residential development downtown. This is good. However, every good residential community needs a bar, and anyone living downtown will tell you that downtown needs local bars! Beale Street is for the weekend, and the restaurants with good bars are, well, mostly for eating. Sleep Out Louie's is ok, but doesn't seem to have that local bar feel. Downtown Blue Monkey was great, but it burned. Mulligans isn't in the way of anything (yet). Personally, I think a smoky sports bar, without bells and whistles, would do a killing. Or a bar with a big patio in the south end on Main or Front. Anyone else agree/disagree?

[sleepy]

Ernestines and Hazel's has always been fine with me.

I agree with you though that downtown really needs some neighborhood bars. I lived in New Orleans, and they were on every other corner in most neighborhoods.

I think though that much of the area between Front and the River and between Patterson and Linden has been zoned as non-entertainment. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I recall a couple of years ago that someone wanted to put in some sort of dance club in there, and the city enacted regulations prohibiting it. Whether a neighborhood bar would get in, I don't know.

[Clobber]

Pinch could use a little fleshing out, as could the Marshall area by Shelby State. I like the Saucer myself. They serve Belhavens out of the draft. Good stuff.

[mrwest]

A few neighbor bars are definitely needed downtown. It seems to me Dan McGuiness proved how successful one could be, but it lost its atmosphere when most of the staff left. If the Happy Mexican at Talbot opens soon, it might serve that area until the Blue Monkey reopens. Any word on when either of these will be accessible?

Green Beattle, between Vance and Talbot I believe, seems to be trying to clean up their image. I haven't been there. Does anyone know anything about it?