They’re taking away my Redskins bar.
Two years after I discovered it, Dan Brown’s Lounge in Palo Alto is closing in a rent dispute with the owner of the building. This is distressing in ways I can’t even begin to explain. Setting aside the fact that the Skins have won every time but once or twice that I’ve been in attendance, this is a place made with me in mind. Half of it is a Redskins bar – framed Riggins and Grimm jerseys, oil prints of Jurgensen and Monk, signs and pennants – and the other half is a straight-up dive, complete with pics of the Rat Pack, and Sophia Loren giving Jayne Mansfield the side-eye, and a large nude of Marilyn Monroe over the curved bar. It’s not the most accessible place via public transit (though it’s doable), but in every other respect it’s just my kind of place.
And a week from tomorrow, it’s no more.
I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried. But there’s not consistent enough music at any Irish place, O’Neill’s is too far north and O’Flaherty’s too far south, Trials has no television and takes forever to get home from, BBC picks up too many douchebag mid-life crisis cases, Mervyn’s is just too hell-pray-we-don’t-get-shot, Iberia is way too expensive, Tied House has terrible food and the Saint is way too may-contain-Irish-substance, and the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay is way too far away.
How long O Lord will I search in vain for something to replace the 4P’s?