Your Favorite Bar

[chasea]

Ernestine and Hazels is located in the South Main Arts District of Downtown Memphis, Tn. The bar spent its previous life serving as a dry goods store. The jukebox downstairs is one of the few remaining analog jukeboxes in the city, featuring soul and funk hits from the 60s and 70s. Soul Burgers are the only thing on the menu, and usually only served late at night. Make your way to the back of the bar and climb the stairs to what used to be a brothel. The rooms are now open to visitors, and one can hang out amongst the old furniture, broken refrigerators and televisions, and gutted pianos. Cracked mirrors and dirty bathtubs can be found in the bathrooms upstairs. Many people claim to have encountered the former inhabitants of the building. There is a small bar with a piano upstairs overlooking the trolley line on Main Street. You can buy drinks for the local bluesmen who camp out up there. Haunted or not, the place has a funky, seedy vibe to it. The patrons are a healthy mix of locals from either side of the tracks. Things don't really get going there until around midnight.

Eat, drink, dance, sing, talk to strangers. Filthy and seedy while still being homey. If there is a heaven, and by some mix-up I manage to get in, I hope its like this.


Downstairs.



Used for the video of Portland Oregon while the record was being mixed in Memphis.


Upstairs

[e-RICHIE]

i used to like the ear inn before it got outed.
same with mcsorleys - it changed once they let women in atmo.

[csbmo]

you couldn't pay me enough to wear loden.

[robin3mj]

.....

[caleb]

One from the old days:



One from these days:



And another regular squeeze:

[jonathanb]

.....

Damn, now I gotta go there tomorrow for lunch!

On topic, the only bar I like that's still in business in Keen's on W. 36th St in Manhattan. Redheads in Hoboken was an old fave but it's been gone for at least 15 years.

[Ben]

Chase, I used to date a girl from Memphis who loved E&H. Another one of her favorites was Raiford's. We never made it there, but according to her, Raiford was a (semi-) retired pimp, and the beverage of choice (if not the only thing on offer) was 40s of Budweiser. Memphis is just filled with places like that. It's one of the most interesting cities in America if you've got a local guide (and "local" has a very definite meaning. If you live east of midtown, chances are you think Heinz ketchup is spicy.)

My favorite bar of all time is the Back Door Tavern in Knoxville. The front of the building was a liquor store, but there was a dive of a beer bar around back, and they'd let you carry in your bottle from the liquor store. The place was tiny, with low ceilings, rotting carpet, and ancient, haphazard decor. But the beer was cold and cheap, there were free hotdogs and cheap popcorn, they gave away free beer until the first team scored during Monday Night Football, there was a horseshoe pit out back, a perfect jukebox, and the people were always happy to be there. On any given night, you'd see lawyers sitting next to truckdrivers telling stories to bankers bending an elbow with plumbers, and they were all pretty tolerant of the asshole college kids, which I happened to be. To make it even better, I started telling my dad about it one day, and we quickly figured out that I was going to his old haunt, back when he sold printing in Knoxville 30 years earlier.

[Eddie]

I have many, in different cities, but Dan's Cafe, Adams Morgan, Washington, DC is tops.

Best early in the evening or on a Wed. or Thurs. night so that it's not overrun with recent college grads and you can actually sit at the bar.

I met a girl one night at a mutual friend's party. As the night progressed, the party proceeded to some horrible "be seen" bar. I called the audible, grabbed the girl, and showed her to a bar stool at Dan's. Been almost eight years now.

Read the Yelp reviews to get the full flavor.

[JoB]

When I lived in DC, my favorite was the Raven in Mt. Pleasant. Does it still exist? Edit: just looked it up, and it does.

It was on the ground floor of a building that had an apartment fire rip through all 3 or 4 storeys above. Since the roof leaked, they nailed a blue tarp to the corners of the room, connected a garden hose to the low spot and drained it into the toilet tank in the men's room.

Great jukebox, too. Fond memories.

In Boston, I really liked Triple D's (my wife's comment when she saw it for the first time: "Is that a strip club?". I was in there the night it shut down, and it was surreal.

I have many, in different cities, but Dan's Cafe, Adams Morgan, Washington, DC is tops.

Best early in the evening or on a Wed. or Thurs. night so that it's not overrun with recent college grads and you can actually sit at the bar.

I met a girl one night at a mutual friend's party. As the night progressed, the party proceeded to some horrible "be seen" bar. I called the audible, grabbed the girl, and showed her to a bar stool at Dan's. Been almost eight years now.

Read the Yelp reviews to get the full flavor.