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Happy Birthday,
Bartender!
One of the party
events was a Saturday afternoon pub crawl.
He's growing older but certainly
not up and while his metabolic rate may be pleasantly stuck, his energy
is certainly in high gear.
The Bartender and friends celebrated his birthday the
weekend of July 26-28 in super style. First, it was a night on the town,
then a pair of pub crawls and finally a margarita party. PubClub is
pleased to bring you this inside look at three days of beachside bashes
for our roving party animal.
Night One
It all started with some beach volleyball, followed by
a free birthday dinner and a few margaritas at Hennessey's in
Hermosa Beach, CA. Upon walking out headed to the next place, The Bartender
was stopped by a girl carrying a tray of Captain Morgan's shots. So,
he went sailing with the Captain for a while before making port at Aloha
Sharkeez next door.
It was one of Shakeez' best nights, full of people The
Bartender had not seen in months (if not longer) as well as current
party friends. The evening ended with a round of with Kamikaze shots
which had him feeling like a battered warrior the next day.
Night Two
On the bike trail:
Joe Anderson (right) organized a unique, scenic pub crawl.
One of The Bartender's best friends, a crazy creative chap named Joe
Anderson, organized a bike ride and pub crawl for Friday evening. The
idea was to take bikes to the top of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the
large and exclusive hill south of Los Angeles airport, and ride downhill
to the bars in Redondo Beach.
The ride was incredibly scenic – huge cliffs dropping off into
the blue Pacific Ocean, looking straight down the curved Redondo Beach.
Majestic homes perched high on the hills provide this same view every
day for their lucrative owners, many of whom passed the group in their
Mercedes, B'mers and Porsches, headed for a dinner party or some other
highbrow social function.
Not so with this crowd. The first destination was the Redondo Beach
Brewing Company, which was reached just before the 6:30 Happy Hour
expired ($1 off tall glasses of delicious home brew).
Brews at Redondo
Brewing and passing the Riviera margarita taste test.
Afterward, the crew went on a fact-finding mission. For years, a restaurant
in the area called the Riviera Mexican Grill has won local awards
for serving the "Best Margarita in the South Bay." The place
is a bit too "GU" (Geographically Undesirable) from the fun
bars of Manhattan and Hermosa beaches for PubClub to have verified this
achievement, but now provided perfect opportunity to do it. Several
varieties were mixed up by the mixed up bartender: house blends, a mango
margarita and a bartender's special. The mix is made in-house and, it
turns out, the margaritas are pretty darn tasty (and it was really PubClub's
Bartender that was mixed up, not Riviera's).
 Next,
it was onto Tony's, a long-standing seafood restaurant on the
Redondo Beach Pier. The lounge on the top level offers a 360-degree
view of the ocean and the South Bay's strongest drink, the Fire Chief.
This is where the group started to become larger as more people joined
the party. After getting hosed down by the Chief, it was across the
pier to the South Bay's newest hot spot, the casual classy restaurant/bar
Xinh Doi. The group knows the owner and was treated VIP style
(okay, they do that for EVERYBODY!) and The Bartender was thoroughly
satisfied with the ever-increasing size of the party group (as well
as the fact that Xinh Doi serves Japanese beer in large bottles).
Finally, it was down the pier a few blocks to Naja's, a laid-back
open-air bar parked next to boats docked in the marina. Naja's has 77
beers on tap (sold in large glasses for a mere $5) and 777 more in bottles.
By this time, the group had swelled to about 30 and the dance floor
was full of fools.
Day Three
Yes, this was "day" three, not "night" three.
The PubClubbers joined up with a bike ride pub crawl that started at
noon the next day and covered a number of bars in the South Bay. Eager
to continue the momentum from the previous pub crawl, The Bartender
was the first from his group to arrive. He walked, quite happily, right
into a social ambush. There were 250 people signed up, all of them young,
good-looking and eager to party. This, he surmised, would be fun.
No problem there. He immediately ran into a friend he had not seen
in months, who just happens to be a bartender at a less-frequented local
establishment. (Less frequented in the past maybe, but not in the future.)
Summer's in Manhattan Beach was the first stop, followed by the
historic Lighthouse in Hermosa (this was once the #1 jazz club
in the world, by the way), the outdoor patio and frozen concoctions
of Chiller's in Redondo and back to Hermosa for the Beach
Club.
Along the way, The Bartender collided with his favorite bartender,
sending them both tumbling to the concrete bike path. The initial pain
was quickly removed with some generous-sized shots of Kamikazes at The
Lighthouse.
It was dark by the time all departed for the next bar, Sharkeez
in Manhattan Beach. But The Bartender had a pit stop to make along
the way. He was the Guest of Honor at a private margarita party and
his arrival signaled a thunderous applause from a group of blenders.
By this time, he had parked his bike and eventually called upon Kenny
The Cab to take him safely home.
The Bartender can be reached at bartender@pubclub.com
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