HH Double-Header

Happy hour was a nomadic affair, Friday evening.  The official Happy Hour Coordinator, PK, decided that we should all go to Frankie's so those fellas who were so inclined could watch basketball.  College basketball, to be exact.

Frankie's is a sports bar, and that about sums it up, really.  Lots of televisions mounted near the ceiling, lots of guys in identical shirts jumping out of their chairs and screaming in unison.  The temptation to compare it to synchronized swimming is tempting, but I think I'll let that alone.  Might get beat up for insinuating that those armchair-point-guards (in their identical embroidered button-down shirts) were anything but macho.  As one of my fellow (female) HH-goers commented, "I know it's Uptown, but there are a lot of d-bags here."

I didn't eat at Frankie's, having already eaten at a mediocre catfish joint (If you're a catfish joint in Texas, you'd better have good catfish.  They didn't.)  But I did once eat there, and I remember the food being okay.

I know I'll go back to Frankie's from time to time, if only to watch sports.  It's exactly like any other sports bar, though.  Nothing special.  Its location is the only thing that recommends it.  Why?  Because, after the game is over and you've grown tired of the terrible almost-pints of Guinness, you can head over to...

 The Quarter Bar at Breadwinner's.

The 1/4 bar also has its share of, ahem, cheesey fellows.  But it has something else to recommend it: character.  It's in an older building and is two stories.  On the first floor, there are velvet upholstered slipper chairs scattered around the warren of rooms for your seating pleasure, or you can stand in the middle of the room and keep people from accessing the bar.  I'm not sure which I prefer, personally, because I always go upstairs.

The second floor tends to be less crowded, although there are fewer steam-punk chairs in which to loll.  The wood floors are delightfully off-kilter, so ladies in heels, watch your step.  Or just fall strategically to the side and grab onto one of the handsome fellows (in an embroidered shirt, natch) that is probably occupying the patch of floor adjacent to you.

The Guinness at the 1/4 Bar isn't draught on the second floor.  In fact, it's out of a can, but it's still better than the bitter swill Frankie's tries to pawn off as that oh-so-blessed of quaffs.  The second floor also closes about 30 minutes before the ground floor, so be prepared for bartenders to start herding you towards the door at 1:30.  They will initially be quite genial about the whole thing, but by the second or third round of "finish up, it's time to go," their encouragement to leave has reached more of a "chug it and go the f*** home!" attitude ( and yes, that is a direct quote).