The Locks visits Sydney, Washington DC for some of The World's Greatest Bars. Today we also visit some the world's worst.
Glenmore Hotel Sydney, Australia
It was the Epsom Derby. There I was loudly urging on Treasure Beach who looked like was certain to win at 25-1 and likely earn me my biggest pay day ever in horse racing. In the last stride of the race, Pour Moi, caught Treasure Beach at the line and I dropped to my knees in defeated agony. The French horse was named victor after the stewards analyzed the photo finish. I was 10,000 miles and 10 time zones away from where the race was being run but despite the distance I was able to wager on the race. In many pubs in Australia, to my delight, there is a little area carved out that has several TVs showing races and tote-boards of several tracks throughout the day and night. You then can go to the side of the bar and via a TAB Sportsbet machine you can wager on the race.
The bar at the Glenmore Hotel is like many of the pubs that exist in Sydney as it is in a small hotels with the idea being that Australia is such a vast country that those coming to a pub for a drink will have come from a far distance and would need some slumber after drinking before heading back home. The Glenmore ended up being my regular during my visit to Sydney as it was only rugby fields distance from my hotel in the Rocks. The Glenmore's street level bar is a typical pub set up with middys (half-pints) of Cascade lager and pub food. Enough TVs to get your fill of US sports during the early afternoon and then at night it switches over to rugby of both types...rugby union (real rugby) and rugby league (NFL version of rugby). I got a tutorial on the differences by the friendly fresh faced bartenders. Between the rugby on the TV, the friendly bartenders, and betting on horses, I spent most of my time in the downstairs bar but I did not miss what many people come to the Glenmore for which is its roofdeck bar. The roofdeck is reached up several flights of stairs and can actually see some of the hotel rooms that I don't think were actually for guests but once up top the view is awesome. The Glenmore overlooks and has a great view of the Sydney Opera House. Upstairs you can also get food and they have a satellite bar for quick access to your schooner of Cascade. After enjoying the night air and the great view it was time to get back downstairs as there was a horse race about to start somewhere in the world.
Tune Inn Washington, D.C.
The Tune Inn is where I chose to spend the night going into my 21st birthday and the stroke of midnight I was then allowed to legally purchase liquor and I promptly ordered up a shot of Wild Turkey. I slugged that back while we concocted new lyrics to Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire that was blaring out of the Tune Inn jukebox. The lyrics started like this "Love is a bourbon thing, it makes a boy want to sing..." and the refrain was "to Bob, Bob, Bob, Wild Turkey shot to Bob" or something like that. The jukebox was no end to source of entertainment as pitcher after pitcher was consumed at this Capitol Hill establishment. The jukebox had music that was quite foreign to my Long Island born ears but that I quickly learned to love...Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, David Allan Coe, Patsy Cline. We played and sang Patsy Cline's "Your Cheating Heart" so much that for years after unsuspecting patrons putting that song on the jukebox would be chastised by the long-time, bar-life hardened waitresses. Our usual waitress, Judy, shared a love-hate relationship with us...she would curse us for spilled beer, broken plates and glasses, playing Patsy Cline 10x in a row and being a general nusience to her and other patrons but she knew we'd be back soon and compared to some of the uptight Capitol Hill interns and staffers we were good to her when the night ended. We also knew Judy loved us as she usually would hasten the exit of patrons that occupied our usual prime "all-star booth" location for us to take up to enjoy the tasty burgers and drink literally dozens of pitchers of beer.
The bar's decor was borrowed out of taxidermist shop including two deer butts located over the bathroom doors. Another decoration was a picture of one of our buddies that sat for years among the menagerie of other odd stuffed animals. Actually a fight broke out one night when some other drunken patron tried to steal the picture not knowing our attachment to it. The men's room graffitti still after years references to an old G-town lax coach including this little ditty....
Roses are Red,
Violets are Blue
Bill Gorrow is Fat.
1977 Triple Crown winner was Seattle Slew.
Right now unfortunately the Tune Inn is temporarily closed due to a fire at the bar over the summer. But in fine Tune Inn style I've heard that if you walk by the bar and the doors are open for the repair workers you can at pour yourself a glass of draft and gulp it down gratis before making your way back to your Capitol Hill endeavour.
We've been looking at the World's Greatest Bar but there are some that don't actually live up to expectations or are just plain awful and here are some of those that are part of World's Most Disappointing Bars:
This bar is listed as not only highest bar in the world as it is on the 87th floor but also Shanghai's chicest. I was staying at the Grand Hyatt and ventured to the bar after an epic Shanghai meal in Pudong. The bar is not so easy to find...you need to go through a labyrinth of dining rooms and corridors to get to the bar and the first impression you have "is this the bar??". If you sit actually at the bar you don't have any view of the city you can see bottles and your bartender thats about it as the bar is not a vantage point for the skyline that litters Shanghai place but also because the place is very dimly lit. Only other patron in the bar the night I was there was some Aussie guy who gave me some sob story about losing his corporate card and if I could buy him a drink - it wasn't a Midnight Cowboy situation but I felt creeped out enough to pull up stakes and venture across the river to some of the bars on the Bund.
Big Al's Peoria Illinois
We were on a baseball road trip. We ended up in this go-go bar entirely because we loved the name. I think there was a girl that we had nicknamed Big Al in college due to her white blonde hair and translucent skin and thought it some form of fate that a familiar named go-go was sitting in front of us on Main Street in this backwater little city. We went in and up to the bar and ordered bottles of Miller High Life, like what else would you order? The entertainment half heartedly smiled at us and after a few minutes one of our party let out a big yawn at this point the tassled staffer said "I know, this place is pretty lame, here's your dollar back"....we quickly downed our Millers and hastily exited....back in the car we had realized that no one had tipped our hostess so we were giddy that we were up $1 on the night.
Goodfellas Dubai, UAE
I was in Dubai midweek in a November and Arsenal was playing in Champion's League match so I ventured to the proclaimed Arsenal Supporters Dubai HQ at the Regal Plaza Hotel at a bar called Goodfellas. The place did have a good share of TVs to watch the match but thats where the good started and stopped. The beer served was warm and seemed as if the taps hadn't been cleaned in .....ever! In this pirate ship, if the beer stunk, the patrons were stinkier... the hot weather, weak A/C and a bunch of beer drinking English expats created a smell only found in high school locker rooms. The bartender suggested that I may try the club on the floor above of Goodfellas...I thought it can't be worse than this place and went up. The place was a club with loud strange techno and like Goodfellas it was a decidedly male crowd (maybe a 80%/20% split) - even though I had paid a hefty cover - most people were drinking what looked like vodka drinks in small plastic cups...like the plastic cups Rev. Jim Jones served his infamous cool-aid out of so I made like Jimmy Two Times and --- going to get the papers, get the papers.
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