A Bar Named Sue (revisted and sober)

What a difference a day makes, or in this case five days. I too went to A Bar Named Sue last Saturday, and I don’t know if it is sobriety speaking, or merely disenchantment showing through. Either way, my experiences of the evening were far less Celestial than Chad’s. As he mentioned, we got to the bar before he did, we also beat David and Melanie, around nine thirty. The place was not packed when we got there, but it was just full enough that there were no free tables. It’s intensely annoying to see one or two people holding an otherwise empty table and giving your party the stink eye as you walk by.


A Bar Named Sue is under new ownership, and they’ve opened the place up significantly. There was a band that evening, and they even had a dance area open in front of the stage. Unfortunately the band was a wholly unremarkable cover band, no cover and A Bar Named Sue free digital jukebox would have been a better option. The tables were spaced better than they were previously, and the place feels more open than before. They have expanded into a new room to the south as well, which now holds the dart boards and pool tables. The new ownership kept the pool and darts free, which would be great if it was possible to get a pool table. As far as I can tell all the free pool accomplished was to ensure that the same people were camping the tables for the entire time we were there.

We eventually set up shop on the end of the bar, harnessing enough seats for our group, or something closely approximating that. There was a Comcast crew on site that evening, complete with fake bake and fake boob sporting eye candy. Perhaps the most entertaining portion of the evening was taking odds on whether they would fall out of their tied-off plaid tops. Sadly, they did not, or at least not while I was looking.

Once Chad arrived, he promptly acquired a table, or at least part of one, for our group to sit at. We spent most of a pleasant evening at the table, enjoying a few rounds of alcohol and the company of friends. Gina’s side of the story with John is a bit different than Chad’s, she claims he spent time hitting on her off and on during the night. Of course, I’m the boyfriend so she has to tell me that, and the reality of what happened really isn’t relevant. The end result is that we’re now on a first name basis with John, who owns the bar.

Overall our evening was pleasant, although most of that had to do with the company we kept, rather than the bar we were at. I would give A Bar Named Sue a 3 of 5 steins for that very reason. It was clean and well kept. Yet nothing about the bar stood out as exemplary. Or rather, the implementation of the things that should make the bar special (free darts, pool, and shuffle board, a free jukebox) were mismanaged. We would have had an equally good time at nearly any place we deigned to go that evening.

Jon