We Walk into a Bar the Night before Thanksgiving

Yukon’s Tavern and Grill, Fresno, California

Bars the night before Thanksgiving are a thing.

When I worked in the hospitality industry, I heard bartenders speak with dread about college students coming home with cheesy fake IDs and meeting friends at hometown bars for shots and energy drink cocktails. The night before Thanksgiving is also when people head to bars a s a place of retreat when they've already had a few hours with their families and need some time away to prepare themselves for the long day to come. .

Some bars just take the opportunity for a party. While searching for our bar of the week, Mindy found that Yukon’s Tavern & Grill in Fresno was having a Pre Thanksgiving Bash at 9:00 pm, with a DJ and cornhole. (May I again express my displeasure with the term “Cornhole?” “Bean bag game” works just fine, thank you very much.) We arrived before the DJ, because we wanted to talk to people, but the beanbag game was already set up outside.

The bartender said they didn’t have hard cider (which seemed like the Thanksgiving thing to us), so Mindy ordered a cranberry and vodka and I asked for a rum and Coke. When the bartender started writing the night’s specials on a chalkboard, we saw something better yet: 50-cent chicken wings.

While we waited for our wings, we started talking to John, who was sitting next to me at the bar. He was fruitlessly cheering on his Los Angeles Lakers, who were losing to the Sacramento Kings. He said he’d never been much of a basketball fan until Kobe and Shaq came to the Lakers. His dad got excited about the team, and he did as well.

He was willing to answer our two questions: “What makes for a good bar?” and “What would make for a good church?”

John was excited to answer the first question. “I ask myself that question a lot. I’ve wanted to have my own bar since I was ten years old.There aren’t many kids who want to run a bar at ten! This may sound strange, but a good bar should have a family type of environment. No matter what, everyone should always be welcome. Whether it’s the first time they come or the hundredth. Like here.”  John knows the owners of Yukon's and has been impressed with the friendliness of the bar.

As for what makes for a good church, John said he grew up in the Roman Catholic Church which had a “quiet, disciplined environment.” He said there were good things about those rules and somberness, but when he was older, he went to the Salvation Army services and really enjoyed it. He said good music and testimonies makes for a good church.

Alyssa the bartender agreed to take a moment for our questions, too. She said a good bar needed, “Good marketing and promotionals.”

Mindy acknowledged it was the Facebook information that had brought us there, and Alyssa said about the owner, “He’s really popular with people; people come to see him. He’s a good person.” She said bartenders were important, too. I’m a social butterfly. People follow me from place to place. This isn’t my part of town, but I’ve made friends in this community.” She said it was important to have “good vibes” and a “good aura” in the bar. She noted, “If you’re going to get intoxicated, you want to be around people you’re comfortable with.”

As for what makes for a good church, she said that there “good vibes” are important there as well. “My whole life, I’ve wanted to be places that are welcoming and friendly. I don’t want negative energy. I want to be comfortable. My biggest thing about church is I wasn’t comfortable in the Roman Catholic Church. I couldn’t ask questions. When I was older a friend invited me to the Presbyterian Church downtown. They were more casual.” She liked that.

On the way out, we took some tosses at the bean bags. John was smoking nearby, and he and a couple guys leaving the bar cheered us on. I got one beanbag in, and I told one of the men who had just gotten in his truck. He handed me a Tootsie Pop as a prize.

It’s one of the lesser things in my life that I’m thankful for, but it’s still a thing.

We Walk into a Restaurant (and Walk out of a Bar)

Lucy’s Lounge, Fresno, California

Before we began our 2016 adventure of visiting a bar and church in every state, Mindy’s dad asked why we couldn’t instead talk to people at a restaurant in every state. (Mindy’s family tradition is strongly anti-alcohol, so his concerns were understandable.)

We explained that one of our chief goals in visiting bars (and churches, for that matter), was to talk to people. Bars are set up for conversation, restaurants are generally not.

Ever since we first walked into a bar, we’ve wanted to make sure we distinguished restaurants from bars. In some states and counties, laws stipulate that an establishment must make a certain percentage of its income from food in order to sell alcohol. When we were in those communities, it was sometimes tough to find a "real" bar, and part of the challenge was that some people don’t care for bars that don’t serve food. Good food has often been part of what people say makes for a good bar.

Some bars find serving food to be a challenge -- a kitchen requires a big investment in facilities and staff. Some bars we’ve walked into get around that by selling bags of potato chips and other snacks; other bars provide space for a food truck or allow people to bring food from a neighborhood restaurant.

Bobby Salazar, founder of a Mexican food chain in and around Fresno, found a different solution when he opened Lucy’s Lounge (named for his wife) this year. He joined forces with another local institution, Mama Mia Pizzeria, to open a kind of conjoined restaurant-bar combo. From the outside, they’re clearly two different places: Lucy’s Lounge (a bar and live jazz venue) and Mama Mia (an eat-in, delivery, or pick up pizza joint). Inside, there’s no real wall between the two.

You order Italian food from the pizza parlor side and alcoholic drinks from the bar side, but there are tables and chairs on both sides. (You can order cans of soda in Mama Mia’s, too)  We ordered a pizza at the Mama Mia counter and found a table in Lucy’s Lounge because the bar was pretty busy, and we had company that night. Our son, Bret, had joined us.

Mama Mia is bright, with functional decor. Lucy’s is dark, with jazz albums on the walls and jazz music playing. A couple of the large screens showed the Cleveland Cavaliers beating the Charlotte Hornets; others played The Happy Hour, a Bay Area sports talk show.

It also happened to be happy hour in the bar.

We ordered a couple of “Lucy’s Fall Drinks,” cocktails with an autumnal theme. Since Thanksgiving is coming (and they didn’t have any hard cider), I ordered an Apple Cider Martini, while Mindy kept up the fall theme with a Pumpkin Martini. Our glasses had cinnamon sugar rims, and Mindy’s drink had whipped cream on top. Both were tasty, and they seemed to be generous pours.

Happily, the drinks and pizza arrived at the same time. Bret isn’t a fan of martinis, so he had Dr Pepper from Mama Mia. (Dr Pepper is always a good option in my book.)

The people at the bar and the tables nearby seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. Three men arrived and greeted each other with kisses; two women pored over a map at another table. Other couples sat at the bar and at other tables. Interrupting those conversations to ask our questions seemed like a bad idea.

Mindy looked onto the cozy patio that runs along the front of the building. Nobody was sitting there, but a few glasses at a corner table were a reminder of the conversations that had taken place there earlier in the day.

Before we left, Mindy decided she ought to leave our card with the bartender. The woman who’d served us had clocked out, and when she offered the card to the new bartender, she said, “I know you!”

Mindy hadn’t been paying much attention, but the bartender was Sarah, who’d been tending bar at PressBox when we’d visited in June (we had a sports bar theme that month as an excuse to watch the Golden State Warriors playoff games). Mindy was delighted to get to see her again, and as we walked headed for the door, Sarah told us to come back soon.

We were happy to have eaten well and drunken well (“dranken well”, “drinked well”... Sometimes English is just too much for me). But we enjoyed our time at Lucy’s (and Mama Mia), even if we didn’t chat much with strangers (i.e. friends we haven’t met).

We Walk into a Bar near Sunset

Elbow Room, Fresno, California

“I’m going to order you the steak bites,” Rechell the bartender said to the three men at the bar to our right. They had ordered drinks, but she wanted to make sure they didn’t miss the food samplers that came free with happy hour drinks. Elbow Room Bar and Grill was founded in 1955, and it’s often received local awards. The interior has a warm feel, with dining, bar, and banquet areas.

But since it was a pleasant autumn afternoon in Fresno, it was nice to sit in the patio’s bar area. It was also nice to be there at 4:00 pm instead of after 9:00 pm, when smoking is apparently permitted in the covered patio. Still, the big stone fireplace is probably a cozy spot on a cool evening.

When we first sat down, we didn’t see a bartender, but a couple of guys at the bar had drinks. We figured we had nothing better to do, so we just waited and idly watched the NCAA game on one screen and NHL on the other. A waitress came by, brought menus, answered our questions, and took our orders.

Unlike some other guys who came later, WE knew that food samples came with our drinks -- that’s one of the reasons we came during happy hour. I got an Angry Orchard (which frankly, I might be overdoing as my go-to) and Mindy said she was in the mood for cranberry and vodka (she’d decided before we left home, mostly because she’s been embarrassed by her own indecisiveness far too many times). Since both of us had drinks from the happy hour menu, we didn’t just get the ginger steak bites, but also classic deviled eggs as well.  

After we’d been there about fifteen minutes, Rechell arrived for her shift, and she did her prep work while also taking orders from people at the bar and servers who were covering the patio tables. She greeted guests she knew as they walked by while she stocked the liquor, filled up the olives, cleaned the sink, and washed glasses.

In spite of being busy, she also cheerfully took time to answer our usual two questions, “What makes for a good bar?” and “Whether you go or not, what makes for a good church?”

She said that a good bar had “good drinks and actually the people. Number one is the people. Oh my gosh, there are so many things. You have to be comfortable. Good service. It’s nice to be treated well.”

I asked what she thought was the best thing about Elbow Room, and she said, “It’s the customers. The people make this place. The clientele here is amazing. There’s such a variety, but everybody just gets along. Doctors, lawyers, ranchers, and construction workers.”

She was busy, but she had time to answer our other question, too. She said a good church had, “Good people, definitely, and, of course, the preacher.”

People did seem to be enjoying themselves, many meeting friends or colleagues, some already enjoying the long holiday weekend. We were happy with the hour we spent there.

We Walk into a Casino and Dean Gets Scolded

Club One Casino, Fresno, California

Actually, the security guy never told me I couldn’t take pictures. I’d taken a picture of the bar’s dining area and then turned and took a picture that included the casino area, but from a distance.

That photo also included the security guy, who approached me shaking his head. I put my phone away, and he seemed good with that. But let me repeat, he never told me explicitly not to take pictures.

There are all kinds of ways to use cameras to cheat, so keeping them out of the card playing area makes sense. Mindy took pictures in the bar (she was in the restroom when I got my possible reprimand), but she stayed far away from the gaming.

I recently began working at a downtown Fresno hotel. You’d think a city with half a million people would have a thriving downtown, but that’s not the case. When my shift begins at 11:00 pm, the only food options outside of the hotel are Club One and Domino’s Pizza, and the only drink option in the neighborhood, outside of the hotel, is Club One. I thought we should see this place where I’d directed people.

We walked through the gaming area (where, in California, only people 21 and older can visit) to the restaurant’s bar.  Club One also has a coffee shop that sells Starbucks coffee, though it’s not an official Starbucks. Coffee is available to players, presumably to keep ‘em playing.

The bar had many TV screens on the walls, and though some played basketball or hockey games, about half were tuned to game seven of the World Series. When we’d walked into the casino, a security guard (not the one who later kind of scolded me) saw my Oakland A’s shirt and said, “Go Dodgers!” There were a number of Dodger fans in the place, but also a number of Dodger detractors (who are probably also Giants fans). Fresno’s halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, so it’s interesting to notice plenty of fans from both the Blue and the Orange and Black.

But the game kept us from asking the questions we often ask (“What makes for a good bar?” and “What makes for a good church?”), because people had their mind on other things -- such as Yu Darvish’s rather disastrous pitching performance for the Dodgers. (Dodger fans booed their own pitcher as he left the field.)

I ordered an Angry Orchard cider, Mindy had a glass of pinot noir from Sonoma County’s DeLoach winery, and we shared an order of egg rolls. The bartender who brought us the menu was attentive to our drinking and dining needs, but aside from smiling, didn’t engage with us at all socially. I didn’t catch the name on her tag, let alone get a chance to ask her what made for a good bar. I couldn’t get a sense whether the people at the bar were regulars or not, but we enjoyed our drinks, the egg rolls, and the couple of innings (which turned out to be decisive innings) we watched.

On our way back to the parking garage under the casino, a man standing near the door asked us, “Are you from out of state?”

We told him no, and I asked why he thought we were.

“I saw you taking pictures, and I saw the security guy talk to you.”

We told him about the blog, and gave him a card. So we did end up chatting, just for a minute or two, with one person at Club One -- besides the security guys, the bartender, and the man in the cage who validated our parking ticket.