Tag: bars

Drinking in the streets

The Masked Bar­fly has joined the prob­lem drink­ers in Cuba Mall. No, I haven’t star­ted quaff­ing meths or wrest­ling diners for their steaks (it’s all a filthy lie): Good Luck have gone over­ground and now have an out­door drink­ing area in the middle of the mall. I sup­pose the loc­al retail­ers don’t mind people drink­ing in the streets as long as we’re pay­ing them $15 a pop for the priv­ilege.

A couple of us flies were still buzz­ing after the Ornette Cole­man gig, and after a quick stop at Kazu to fill our abdo­mens (and to sup on salt-rimmed sake & ton­ic – so wrong and yet so right) we headed off to Happy for the rumoured “after party”. Well, it was def­in­itely after­wards, and I sup­pose it was a party, but unless we left too early (the New­town bus was call­ing) there was no sign of Mr Cole­man or even one of his myri­ad bassists. Oh well, a Chris Knox sight­ing will do for now.

So, “El Toro” is it? It seems all things Mex­ic­an are hot right now, and while it’s not exactly a tequila bar, Viva Mex­ico from the much-missed Wake­field Mar­kets will be mak­ing a wel­come return. It opens this Fri­day at the back of the Left Bank, com­plete with old favour­ites like Divorced Eggs and new hip­ster-friendly Dios de los Muer­tos décor.

Speak­ing of comebacks, Herd Street Bras­ser­ie is appar­ently set to reopen next month. Let’s hope that the new own­ers are more savvy than the ori­gin­al ones: though let’s face it, that would­n’t be hard. And the Masked Bar­fly also hopes that they con­tin­ue an emphas­is on alco­hol as well as food: all togeth­er now, “Oh I do like to drink beside the sea­side…”

Fly on the wall

Greet­ings: it’s The Masked Bar­fly here, and I’ve been keep­ing my com­pound eyes peeled for drinky stor­ies to keep you informed, enter­tained and inebri­ated. With the Fest about to kick off, and the Fringe well under way, it’s going to be a busy time out on the town for a while.

Bars near the Fowl-house and Town Hall are likely to be hum­ming, and while I don’t expect the luv­vies and K‑block mat­rons to be hit­ting Blend or Down­town Loc­al (now, that would be a scene to see!), cafes like Felix, Finc and The Lido will be crammed with eth­ic­ally-faux furs and ren­ted tuxes. Pon­ci­er bars such as St Johns will be taken over for spon­sors’ drinks, such as for tonight’s open­ing Ornette Cole­man, though I won­der what most of the bray­ing suits would make of the squawk­ing sax?

While there’s nowhere brand-new to take advant­age of the free-spend­ing boomers, the fly is noti­cing a buzz build­ing around the Cour­tenay Place and Blair St area, and is get­ting quite excited. No, not over The Tem­per­ance (while any bar­fly can appre­ci­ate the iron­ic monik­er, three floors of tanked-up boof­heads is not my idea of fun), but over a couple of highly-anti­cip­ated and long-rumoured open­ings. UU (did any­one ever call it that?) has been closed for renov­a­tions, and a sneaky peak revealed the mir­rors giv­ing way to brick. That, com­bined with the appear­ance of bull­fight­ing posters in the win­dow, has me won­der­ing: could this be a prop­er tapas bar at last. And as for what’s hap­pen­ing in Blair St … well, my mand­ibles are sealed.