#2363 - Big Bad John's, Victoria, BC - 12/1/2013

What does one say about Big Bad John's? One thing that we probably should not say too much about -- for anyone who might be still to visit for the first time -- is that every table has a potential surprise. But you won't be thinking about that when you enter -- you'll be staring at the amassed notes, bills, IDs, bras, and collected gallimaufry of hillbilly bric-a-brac that covers virtually every inch of the place (including the floors if you count peanut shells).

BBJ's has been like this since 1962, when the owner figured a joint that looked like it was run by Li'l Abner's trashier cousins would seduce visitors up from the Seattle World's Fair. The manufactured dive is actually the lounge of the Strathcona Hotel, and started its life as the swanky Strathcona Lounge, the first post-prohibition cocktail lounge in British Columbia.

Big Bad John's, Victoria, BC

What it is now, well, you really just have to experience. And if you haven't yet done that, uh, just take a look at the pictures. Some folks criticize the place as not "authentic," which seems to make about as much sense as using that argument against Disneyland. Others say it is not a real "dive," which just make me curious about their definition of the term. They've been selling cheap booze in a shabby setting for over 50 years. Whatever it is, if you like dive bars or just joints with a lot of character, it is the can't-miss bar stop in Victoria.

Big Bad John's, Victoria, BC

Favorite yelp review opening line: "I have a hard time being objective when discussing BBJ because every time I go there, they kick me out!"

Big Bad John's, Victoria, BC

Big Bad John's, Victoria, BC

Big Bad John's, Victoria, BC

919 Douglas Street, Victoria, BC V8W 2C2 - (250) 383-7137
Est. 1954 - Building constructed: 1912
Previous bars in this location: The Strathcona Room
Web site: strathconahotel.com/BigBadJohns.aspx - facebook
Articles ranked: timescolonist - timescolonist - horsingaroundvictoria - 20somethingcollegelife - dinehere - stylusmagazine - yelp - tripadvisor - your-restaurant-sucks - mygola

#2362 - Irish Times Pub, Victoria, BC - 12/1/2013

Irish Times, Victoria, BC

Since I told you about the murder of the owner of  the Garrick's Head Saloon across the street, I might as well pass along the story of architect of the grand old Bank of Montreal Building, which now houses Victoria's Irish Times Pub. From the City of Victoria's Self-Guided Walking Map:

'One of British Columbia’s most famous architects, Francis Mawson Rattenbury, designed the Bank of Montreal building (now the Irish Times Pub) and Victoria’s Parliament Buildings. Rattenbury divorced his first wife Florence in the 1920s after commencing a scandalous affair with a much younger woman. Shunned by their friends, the new couple married and moved to England where she soon fell in love with their 19-year-old chauffeur. One night not long after, her new lover took a carpenter’s mallet and clubbed Rattenbury to death! Though charges against her were dropped, she committed suicide a few days later by stabbing herself and falling in a river."'

Undissuaded by the bloody history of our neighbors to the north, Matt MacNeil (Bard and Banker, Penny Farthing) has installed here an opulent palace of gleaming brass, etched glass and dark wood which was recently named one of the top 12 Irish bars outside of Ireland by the paper that inspired its name.

I have never been to Ireland, but when I imagine the sort of Irish pub I would most enjoy, it is a cozy, timeworn, little place far removed from the grandiosity of this kind of place, with its two country clubby floors hosting 190 seats (80 more on the patios in summer). Nevertheless, they have some very nice beer choices, sufficient food options, and it appears to become a fun place when thanks to the crowds and live music seven days a week. The Irish Times article cites the "craic" of the place, i.e. the air of mischievous merriment. I'd still prefer a small neighborhood joint myself, but any bar with craic makes the world a better place.

1200 Government St, Victoria, BC V8W 1Y3 - (250) 383-7775
Est. 2004 - Building constructed: 1896
Web site: irishtimespub.ca - facebook
Reviews: timescolonist - cbc.ca - douglasmagazine - yelp - urbanspoon - beeradvocate 

#2361 - Garrick's Head Pub, Victoria, BC - 12/1/2013

Garrick's Head Pub is said to have been established in 1867 and to be among the 12 oldest bars in Canada and the second oldest in British Columbia. Given the typical inaccuracies in such articles for the one area I know fairly well (Seattle), and considering the complexities often overlooked  -- Was it under the same name? Was it always in this building? How long were the interruptions to business as a bar? Etc. -- and having seen no primary sources and no strong historical sourcing, I accept these claims with caution. However it does appear that a Garrick's Head Saloon was established here December 31, 1867, remained that until at least 1914, and operated under various other names until fairly recently. (Interruptions as a licensed bar would have minimally included prohibition in British Columbia from 1917 through 1921.)

In November 2012 the small pub hidden in the back of the building expanded into the large, bright space between itself and busy Government Street. Another bar downstairs has closed -- this was Churchill's, which we were informed was a biker bar known for drugs and underage drinking. These days Garrick's is a locus of the craft beer community, with 55 choices on tap and a standard bar food menu of burgers, salads, nachos, etc.  The staff are casual and friendly.

In back the old wood burning fireplace still burns below a mounted elk head, and like every respectable building of its age, it has been found to harbor ghosts. One of these is said to be the spirit of Mike Powers, onetime owner of the joint, "a big, hard-drinking, loud-talking Irish immigrant who spent a fair bit of time in Victoria brothels." (timescolonist) At 3am on the morning of October 1, 1899 Powers was clubbed and beaten, and he died 4 days later. Unlike the many criminals hung here in Bastion Square after a final meal across the street from court house in Garrick's Head Saloon, the attackers of Mike Powers were never identified. But they were described as a man and a woman dressed as a man, the latter said by some to be an ex-wife of Powers' and by others another man's wife whose fidelity Powers had publicly disparaged.

In any case, we saw no ghosts on our visit, and with the expansion of the cozy little room into a bright, high-windowed, tourist-beckoning hub of beer sophistication, it's hard not to believe that the spirit of old Mike Powers has not finally moved on.

1140 Government St, Victoria, BC V8W 1Y2 - (250) 384-6835
Est. 1867
Web site: garrickshead.com
Articles: timescolonist - mojdehsami - flickr - dinehere - where.ca

#2360 - Pourhouse Restaurant, Vancouver, BC - 11/30/2013

In an elegant setting on Gastown's Water Street (kitty corner to the steam clock), the Pourhouse delivers fine cocktails and food with some upscale takes on familiar comfort foods. The 1910 building that originally held the Leckie Boot Co. now features a 38 foot long bar created from reclaimed 120-year-old Douglas Fir, and this is surrounded by antiques and turn of the (20th) century decor. The cocktail menu is short and rotates, and you depend on the quality of any classic. They are likely to be crowded, so plan ahead.

162 Water Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 1B2 - (604) 568-7022
Est. Sep 2009 - Building constructed: 1910
Previous bars in this location:
Web site: pourhousevancouver.com - facebook
Articles ranked: globeandmail - vancouverobserver - vancouversun - cocktailia - itstodiefor - bevancouver - whyilovelife - yelp

#2359 - The Portside Pub Vancouver, BC - 11/29/2013

The Portside Pub, Vancouver, BC
   

I probably would not have liked this place much if I'd come during its clubby hours, with the rope line and the bros with backward baseball caps (it seems odd for someplace named as a public room to charge a cover, no?). But during the slower hours when we dropped into the lower level of the three-level restaurant and bar we could relax and enjoy the nicely remodeled historic building and the maritime decor. And I'm an admirer of owner Mark Brand's (Save On Meats, Boneta, Sharks and Hammers, Diamond) appreciation for beautiful old buildings in the area and respect for the residents, even when they're down and out.

The Portside Pub, Vancouver, BC

7 Alexander Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 1E9 - (604) 559-6333
Est. Jan 28, 2013
Previous bars in this location: PostModern
Web site: theportsidepub.com - facebook
Reviews: vancitybuzz - vancitybuzz - dennisthefoodie - vancouverfoodtour - vancouverisawesome - thesnipenews - yelp - urbanspoon

#2358 - Narrow Lounge, Vancouver, BC - 11/29/2013

The entrance to the Narrow Bar has no sign, and it looks like an abandoned building, broken into by street people. For those in the know, the clue that the romantic bar downstairs is open is the red light out front. Down the stairs is a bar about the size of a train car, seemingly decorated for some gilded age robber baron, which serves quite nice cocktails and is packed and lively in the evenings. It may be my favorite bar that I've ever been to in Vancouver. We definitely need to come back in the Summer when the Hideaway secret tiki bar is open on the back patio. (Thanks to our local friend Peter for guiding us to in our Main Street bar crawl.)

1898 Main St, Vancouver, BC V5T 3B7 - (604) 839-5780
Est. 2008
Web site: narrowlounge.com - facebook
Articles ranked: followmefoodie - foodology - shermansfoodadventures - boredinvancouver - lonelyplanet - urbanspoon - bcliving - yelp

#2357 - The Cascade Room, Vancouver, BC - 11/29/2013

Good cocktails

2616 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V5T 3E6 - (604) 709-8650
Web site: thecascade.ca - facebook
Reviews: bcliving - straight.com - urbanspoon - yelp - urbandiner

#2356 - El Caminos, Vancouver, BC - 11/29/2013

A nice place to have some tapas modified from various Latin countries, or just some good margaritas or tequilas.

3250 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V5V 3M6 - (604) 875-6246
Est. 2012
Web site: elcaminos.ca - facebook
Reviews: vancitybuzz - straight - thetacoproblem - yelp - urbanspoon - dinehere

#2355 - The Shameful Tiki Room, Vancouver, BC - 11/29/2013

Owner Rod Moore took in some of the top new tiki bars around the country including Martin Cate's Smugglers Cove and put together a tiki bar in Vancouver that is top notch in both decor and cocktails. If you step into the darkness from a sunny day outside, you'll need a few moments for your eyes to adjust to the welcoming dark glow of the float lights and fishtrap lamps amidst the bamboo and thatch. Moore says Cate advised him "Don’t go cheap: even if no one in Vancouver knows what tiki is, they will all know what cheap is" (straight.com), and the attention to detail shows. The narrow space reminds me a little bit of Portland's Hale Pale,

The food is smallish menu of Trader Vics-like polynesian and Asian tastes, and the cocktails are reliably good, with shared, flaming Volcano Bowls and Mystery Bowls available, which are sometimes delivered Mai Kai Mystery Girl style, a gong, smoke, thunder and lightning. They also have a Rum Club and we had the good fortune of meeting our friend and Vancouver bon vivant Peter there on the night he became the very first person to complete a passport, having ordered 50 different rums.

4362 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V5V 3P9 - (604) 319-1747
Est. March 2013
Web site: shamefultikiroom.com - facebook
Articles ranked: critiki - straight.com - vancitydrinkspecials - theglobeandmail - vanbrosia - winetimes - tikiroom - vancouversun - scoutmagazine - foodadventuretime - urbanspoon - yelp - foodology - bcliving - vancourier - 10best - lonelyplanet - kiosk - ooga-mooga

#2354 - Funky Winker Beans, Vancouver, BC - 11/29/2013

Funky Winker Beans, Vancouver, BC

Just across West Hastings street from Funky Winker Beans is the Grand Union Hotel, which I have described as a very pure dive, with an elderly crowd and not a hint of hipness. Funkys is the opposite sort of dive, where young people go to hear live punk and metal shows on the weekends, and karaoke every other day of the week.

For many decades previously the building appears to have operated as a hotel and brothel, and the old photographs of women on the bar walls are said to be prostitutes who worked upstairs around the 1920s. It features a grand, antique back bar and columns that look like they date back to about that time.

Funky Winkerbeans, Vancouver, BC

37 W Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 1G4 - (604) 569-3515
Est. 1984? - Building constructed: year
Previous bars in this location: The Palace Hotel
Web site: funkywinkerbeans.ca - facebook - tumblr
Reviews: yelp - theprovince - alienatedinvancouver - tumblr - tumblr - ahamedia

#2353 - Grand Union Hotel, Vancouver, BC - 11/29/2013

At the moment I am writing this I have listed 2,713 different bars where I have had a drink, and I don't believe I've ever seen a more classic, more pure dive bar than this one. You walk through the sketchy neighborhood and past a couple people out front with their belongings in shopping carts, and enter a medium-sized space that is utterly uncompromised by hipsters or college students, craft beers or matching furniture. Of course it has the staples of a classic dive -- cheap, strong drinks, elderly, low-income patrons, and decades of repairs done on the cheap or not at all. Eventually we noticed, almost stunned, that with more than 40 people in the joint in the middle of the day, we could not find a single hint of a mobile phone. So you'll have to excuse the lack of interior photos, as pulling out a camera or iPhone just seemed entirely inappropriate.

The bar appears to have been established sometime in the 20s (prohibition stood in British Columbia from 1917 to 1921), and we were told it has had the current owners since 1960. While there is, unsurprisingly, little about the bar online, apparently as evening sets in some people under 70 will wander in, and here are a few selected comments from yelp contributors and bloggers to help give you a bit more of the flavor:

'The cop’s reply: “If I were you, I’d get the fuck out of here right now. With every passing second, the likelihood of you getting stabbed with a needle or a knife grows larger,”' (viren.ca)

"I asked a couple of girls to meet me there, however, and they both felt really uncomfortable and asked that we leave."

"Where the bar band goes up on a tiny stage and plays spirit of the sky with a midi-synth drummer on a cheap panasonic keyboard? Where youre GUARANTEED to get a shoulder massage by someone much older and drunker than you are, to be sold a pair of bowling shoes ..."

"The place may be filled with older native people who may or may not have teeth, but these are the friendliest people you're going to meet on a drunk adventure in Gastown."

"When you walk through the doors, you know that life is, or has been, a warzone for almost everyone inside."

"If you value ur health and safety, do not go in!"

"Check your teeth at the door, as you'll be one of the few who still has them all. Prepare to be asked for a cigarette 90 times by the same person in a 5 minute span, told you're beautiful (at least I think that's what the word was), and called by any name the regulars can remember (one guy was named Boy George all night)."

"We went in, sat down and within five minutes a woman wearing a bright pink turban staggered over, mumbling incomprehensibly as she gestured at her cell phone. I assumed she was trashed and couldn't turn it on, but we eventually figured out that she was trying to sell it to us. When that didn't work, she sat on my friend's lap and tried to steal my cider."

"6 Asians walk into a bar and what do you get?  Stares and incoherent hellos in every Asian language possible.  Apparently Asians rarely go to the Grand Union Hotel."

"Also sitting down a tranny sold me friend shoes. We danced and crowd surfed on the dance floor. Then left to watch chicks brawl outside. It was amazing."


74 Hastings St W, Vancouver, BC V6B 1G6 - (604) 681-6611
Est. 1920?
Web site: Um, no.
Reviews:yelp - viren - sleazybars

#2352 - The Lamplighter, Vancouver, BC - 11/29/2013

Gastown's Lamplighter is said to be Vancouver's oldest bar, established in 1925 on the ground floor of the 1902 Dominion Hotel:

"In 1925, the Lamplighter, which received Vancouver’s first pub license, took over the ground floor. The pub is called the Lamplighter after John Clough, who was Vancouver’s one and only lamplighter. In 1887 John used to light the coal oil street lamps of Gastown until the same year the city introduced electric lights and John’s nightly patrols became part of history. The Lamplighter was the first establishment to serve ladies with ‘intoxicating refreshment’- although they were supposed to be escorted by men!" (gastown.org) 

Today the Lamplighter is a fairly typical north American Irish bar, with exposed brick, dark wood, televisions for watching sports, a broad selection of beers, and average modern pub food. Naturally, like every 100-year-old building investigated by ghost hunters as long as ghost hunting has existed, it has been found to be haunted. In terms of the more palpable form of spirits, I quite liked the "Sip of Cigar" cocktail (Winer's spiced whiskey, Glenlivet 12 year single malt, sweet vermouth, Angostura orange bitters, orange zest).

92 Water Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 2K8 - (604) 687-4424
Est. 1925 - Building constructed: 1900 - 1901
Web site: donnellygroup.ca/the-lamplighter - facebook
Reviews: vancitybuzz - gastown.org - urbanspoon - yelp

#2351 - The Bottleneck, Vancouver, BC - 11/28/2013

A swanky little lounge, serving fancy small plates and cocktails, recently carved out of a space for storing furniture in the venerable Commodore Ballroom, which itself has been around since 1929 and hosted acts from Duke Ellington to Nirvana (insidevancouver).

870 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 2C9 - (604) 739-4540
Est. May 2012
Web site: thebottleneck.ca - facebook
Reviews: vancouversun - insidevancouver - vancouverisawesome - yelp - urbanspoon

#2350 - The Morrissey, Vancouver, BC - 11/28/2013

An odd but pleasant combination of old hotel bar, alt music venue, shabby chic hipster hangout, and craft cocktail bar. I had a nice "Betty Monster" (Makers, Ramazzoti Amaro, Bittered Sling Moondog Bitters, Ardbeg Mist, Griottine cherry) and we enjoyed chatting with server Sashina.

1227 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 1M5 - (604) 682-0909
Building constructed: 1906
Web site: themorrisseypub.com - facebook
Reviews: miss604 - yelp - tripadvisor - urbanspoon