Brick Store Pub
For six years I
thought the Brick Store Pub in Decatur had it all. Knowledgeable staff;
impossible-to-beat atmosphere; fantastic pub fare; even if the beers were a bit
pricey, the selection of bottled and draught libations was so enormous, I
considered the hit to my wallet forgivable. Yet the relationship with my local
watering hole was starting to stagnate. I made the same jokes with the servers,
ate the same food, and drank the same brews. Funky hipsters gave way to
annoying college kids in designer jeans, and a ban on smoking inside led to an
epidemic rise in young families and their rugrats. These weren’t catastrophic
changes, but I was nostalgic for the old Brick Store, the slightly smelly pub
that always had an open booth any night of the week. As things changed, I
wasn’t even sure the Brick Store was the bar for me anymore. I decided I needed
a little time away, a trial separation, if you will. The Brick Store would be
fine—she had hundreds of new suitors to choose from. As for me, I needed to get
back out there, find and approach new bars, but I didn’t have a clue where to
start. And then I discovered the ten sister bars of Atlanta.
Universal Joint
A friend and I
were at the Universal Joint in Oakhurst, having turned down a two-hour wait for
a table at the Brick Store. Sitting on the fantastic outdoor patio, I turned
the menu over in my hands to notice on the back a list of ‘sister bars.’ Some
of the names were familiar— 97 Estoria, Moe’s & Joe’s Tavern, U-Joint—fallbacks
for when the Brick Store was too full, or alternatives when in the mood for
something different. The rest were a
mystery, spread across various Atlanta neighborhoods. In a flash of
inspiration, I decided to get to know this family of bars. I’d spent one week
visiting each sister bar, starting with the U-Joint that very night.
Curiosity piqued,
I studied my surroundings a bit more closely. Once a gas station, U-Joint
seemed a bit small on the inside, not in an uncomfortable way. The cozy
L-shaped bar offered plenty of seats for regulars, the right half of the bar
had tall tables with tall stools, and off to the left there were four shorter
tables. The most attractive drawing point was the patio we were currently
sitting on. Not much to shout at when it’s cold or rainy, this patio is heaven
come spring, summer, and early fall. Attention back on
the sister bar list, the address for Steinbeck’s Oyster Bar jumped out at me. “Is
that Steinbeck’s right over there?” I asked our server, pointing to a small,
dark building caddy cornered from the U-Joint.
“And it’s this
place’s sister bar?“Yep, common
owner, don’t know his name though. Ever been there?”
“Not yet,
thinking about going over there after this beer.”“I’ll go ahead
and bring your check.”
Steinbeck's
After paying, we
crossed the street and walked into Steinbeck’s. If the U-Joint is one of the
glamour girls of this family of bars, Steinbeck’s is the middle sister that
everyone forgets about until you share a beer with her, and realize she’s
pretty cool. Yet if the U-Joint felt a bit cramped inside, Steinbeck’s
resembled an empty matchbox. We retreated to the small front patio, a handy
escape hatch to avoid embarrassing claustrophobic breakdowns. Though charming
and quaint, Steinbeck’s couldn’t hold a candle to the Brick Store.
Flatiron
The next afternoon, I drove to East Atlanta to check out my third
sister bar, the Flatiron. Named after the famous building in New York, Flatiron
sits at a similar street junction, giving it an eccentric, intriguing quality.
Inside, the trapezoidal bar looked old but polished, as did the tall tables and
benches to the right of the entrance, and a couple of booths tucked into the
back left corner. A life-sized Bruce Lee mannequin wielding a Charlie Chaplin
cane menaced a customer at the bar, and a foot-tall rat looking like it came
straight from a Nutcracker production hung from the light over the bar. A
bumper sticker above the mirror on the back wall read “Take Your SHIT Back to
Buckhead”, which I personally took to be a good sign. Turn-of-the-century
tattoos, like those you’d see on circus strongmen or clipper ship sailors
adorned the walls in individual black frames. Admiring all the cool curios,
cold Stella in one hand, lit cigarette in the other, I was reminded of an old
bar with a similar smell, a similar feel.
Standard Bar
Sister bar four:
The Standard Bar, off Memorial Blvd. Like U-Joint,
the Standard used to be a gas station, and has a very similar setup. But where
the U-Joint has an organic, natural feel to it, a color scheme of muted browns
and reds and oranges, the Standard feels like an old classic. If they were real
sisters, the U-Joint would be a casual folk guitarist, and the Standard a
classy lounge singer. I couldn’t help but be attracted to it’s the clean, dark
lines of the tables, and dramatic green and red accents. Nevertheless, there
are two sides to every drama queen, and the sexy facade gave way to my gruff
server, who barked a breathless, “Hey how are you,” and asked what I wanted to
drink. I choked, ordered a coke, and got one with a surly glare instead of a
smile. Soon, eating my sandwich and sipping my drink, I pondered the idea of a
bar’s personality, good or bad. Monday I had a date with the furthest flung
sister bar down in, the Brake Pad
Bar. Like U-Joint and the Standard, Brake Pad also boasted a nice outdoor
patio, though this one had a good-sized portion that was completed covered.
Eating delicious fried chicken tacos, I watched the occasional approach of
airplanes heading for Hartsfield-Jackson, making a mental note that the next
time I had to pick a friend up at the airport, relax here for a couple hours
before. Sadly, due to how far away it was, I knew it might not be until the
next airport run that I returned. Though only 19 miles from my front door, in Atlanta such a distance
seems as far as the other side of the world.
Limerick Junction
There are four
sister bars who make their homes in the Virginia Highland area. Blind
Willie’s Blues Bar and the Limerick Junction Irish Pub are next door to one
another, and in the mood for blues riffs or a good jig, I headed in their
direction first. The pull of a silky Guinness called, and I sidled up to the
bar in Limerick Junction. I noticed Limerick had fish and chips on the menu,
thought about how that it my favorite meal at the Brick Store. Doubtful it
would taste as good, I put in my order with the bartender. Presented in a
traditional fare, one large, thickly coated fillet, on top of a mountain of
fries, I couldn’t help but think it was merely a replacement, stand-in for the
real thing. As participants of open mic began wailing away, I decided it was
time to go next door. My mood was turning blue. Ironically, looking forward to
gritty local blues, I was told my five-dollar cover purchased admittance to
jazz night. Frowning, I walked through the sparsely populated room, purchased a
Sweetwater at the bar, and found a seat in the back. Jazz night was more appropriate than I
thought, though, as the melancholy sounds of the standup bass, violin, drums
and trumpet serenaded a simple message: no other bar could compare. Blind
Willie’s was the sister bar I had no interest in, and she had none in me, her
music playing on long after I finished my beer and stumbled off into the night.
The Cavern
I came back to the the next day to get
acquainted with Moe’s & Joe’s and The Cavern Bar. I knew all about Moe’s
& Joe’s before I began this bar-dating blitzkrieg. I’d gone there while in
school for their weekly specials on PBR pitchers. Like an awkward catch-up
session with a college fling, I sat at the bar and drank a single beer, the awful
service and third world conditions of the bathroom reminding me why I would
never be able to seriously consider hanging out at Moe’s regularly. The Cavern,
right next door, is the invisible sister. Upon walking into the door, the
bartender and I became best friends, having no one else to talk to. He told me
about how they were going to fix things up, how the Cavern is going to be
great, how people should really give it a chance. I think the Cavern might be
the perfect dive bar, the next insider hangout in Atlanta, and I told him so. He
gave me a complimentary shot of Jager. It made me think of the three shots of
Jameson brought to me on my birthday at the Brick Store, when I was told I had
15 minutes to make them disappear.
97 Estoria
The next evening found me sitting at the bar of 97 Estoria. I’d
been to Estoria several times before, and I swam in the strange deja vu that was
going to a bar during daylight hours when you’ve only ever been there before
during inky twilight; like waking up next to someone who looked much, much
different a few hours earlier. She doesn’t look worse in the light, old Estoria,
just different. Two cops sat across the bar, next to a grizzled looking ex-hippy.
The guy next to him had slicked-back hair that further accentuated his receding
widow’s peak, and several hipsters rounded out the small crowd. Everyone was asking
the bartender how his new baby was, if he and his wife were getting any sleep,
sarcastically offering to buy him a congratulatory shot. The bartender
graciously turned them down, refilling their beers, bringing out the food,
asking about their days. When he got to me, the new guy, he wasn’t mean, but
not as friendly as he was with his regulars. A bit of longing for that
familiarity stole into my heart.
A few days later, after recovering from my
full week of bar-dating, friends called my girlfriend and I up, asking if we
wanted to meet them at the Brick Store. We agreed. The parking gods shone on
us, and we found a spot right out front. Our friends were sitting in the usual
comfortable booth with their two young daughters. I hugged the three year old,
and my girlfriend took the infant in her arms and kissed the top of her downy
head. We gave our friends hugs, as well as Samara, our server, a woman who has
known us and taken care of us since the old days of the Brick Store; before
these kids, before we were friends with their parents, before I slowed down on
my smoking, before I was dating my girlfriend, before best friends left town,
times that I thought of as the glory days. It’s easy to long for glory days,
and to gloss over the fact that we came here so much because we were pretty
unhappy people who drank and smoked too much. The Brick Store
has grown up since I started coming here, but so have I. I’m glad I got to know
all those other bars, and I look forward to visiting them from time to time,
taking old friends and new to open mic night at Limerick Junction, or to Brake
Pad after a long flight, or for late night adventures within 97 Estoria. The
goal of my experimenting, to find a bar to replace my beloved Brick Store,
turned out like many ill-conceived romantic forays. The grass often looks
greener, but once you’re on the other side of the fence, you’d die to be back
in your little patch of paradise.
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