Because being down the pub isn’t a social thing anymore – quite the opposite. It’s 5-time and 5-space, an opportunity to hide in plain sight somewhere that’s on the darker side and has Guinness. And with the cunning use of the Kindle, it’s a mental vacation from the laptop and the television and the threat of work on Monday morning…
Ironic that I would write that just as the need for Sunday escape officially skyrocketed. That new pub worked out well, for the most part, not least because it was across from a second pub in case the vibe wasn’t working out (which proved useful more than once). And because it was five minutes car ride from home, which made asking for pickup less of an imposition (and made Lyft cheap). And for the most part, that became the pub night angle. Once Trials stopped opening on Sundays, and O’Flaherty’s moved the live session to Tuesdays, it didn’t make sense to go any further.
By the beginning of 2020, though, I had in mind that I would give downtown Mountain View one more chance. With no comfy chairs, no fireplace, and unreliable music, it made just as much sense to go one stop on the light rail instead of needing a car at all. And my plan was to avail myself more routinely – Molly’s on the way home in the evening and the Saint on a Sunday night. And I had every intention of making it a thing. And then, a certain coronavirus began to run wild.
For the last two years plus, pub night has been at home. It started in the lower living room, where previous Sunday nights would occasionally be spent trying to get the same vibe with a bomber of Ballast Point or a growler from Tied House. But as the pandemic wore on, it became easier to move upstairs to the office, where a pillow blocked the high window and string lights wound around the shelving, and I would put on some kind of background video on the iMac to try to help create the atmosphere I wanted. At that point, it was less about feeling like I was in the pub and more like I was trying to wish myself out of the world for a few hours. Sunday evenings became measured out in crowlers from Freewheel Brewing, or cider on ice from the farmers’ market.
And then we moved, and I didn’t really have that space. I tried a couple different things – a reclining lawn chair under the back porch overhang if it rained, an Adirondack chair next to a propane firepit if it didn’t. Background video was replaced with a return to RTE radio in Irish, or an RTE podcast, or a repeat of the morning’s Eddie Stubbs Show, played on the iPad on which I could read my book. And the phone stayed in my pocket, and the distractions of websites and social media stayed locked behind Apple’s Downtime settings.
I don’t know how much I thought of the Overcup Oak as a pub, but it was honestly the essence of what I’ve sought ever since: the local, close enough to walk to and from, simple drink, dim light, no television, a comfortable third space. I suppose after a couple of years, the fault isn’t with the pub night at home, it’s just that when home is your residence and your workplace alike, it’s hard to carve out that third place.
In any event, tonight, for the first time in well over two years, Sunday pub night means an actual pub, the next town over. I’m trying not to freight it with too much expectation. After all, the last time I did this, the world was a very different place. It’s critical to think of this as a new iteration, as the next thing, not trying to recover the Overcup in 1995 or the 4P’s in 2000 or Trials in 2007 or 2012 or even Lilly Mac’s in 2013 in the linked post. This is a first attempt at How We Pub Now, and it doesn’t have to be anything but what it is, and if it doesn’t work out, I can always take Tuesday night to watch the sun set in the back yard with a can of something 4% or less.
Of such things do we rebuild our new world.