Sure enough, yesterday morning I got up too late in time to make it to my usual 11:00 brunch at the Majestic. I got out right before 12, hit an ATM, and checked Foursquare to see where people were. Didn’t matter though – I thought to myself, in past weeks if I don’t get to the Saucer by about 1, bartender Christina will start tweeting “Where’s @paulryburn?” I walked in, and Tiffany immediately went “PAUL!!!!!” and ran over and gave me a hug. I chatted with Tiffany and Brittany for several minutes before going inside to get a beer.
General manager Kirk had the opening shift, and he told me I needed to check out an article about a new concept in bars on CNBC. Manhattan bar New York Beer Company is borrowing an idea from the New York Stock Exchange, and pricing their beers based on supply and demand. A ticker runs along the walls of the bar, listing beer prices. As more people order a certain beer, its price rises. If hardly anyone is drinking a particular beer, its price falls and you get a bargain. There’s a maximum price for each beer, so prices will never shoot to the moon. All beers fluctuate between $4 and $8, so even at the maximum you’re getting a good deal considering it’s Manhattan. For those of you who travel to New York, the bar is at 321 44th Street.
The Bloody Mary bar was back, and Kirk told me more about it. “I started it five years ago, at the Cordova Saucer. By the time I thought about bringing it Downtown, the Silly Goose was already doing their Bloody Mary bar and so I didn’t see the point.” However, the FedExForum asked the Saucer to do the bar a week ago, and it was a hit, so they brought it back yesterday. People seemed to enjoy it, buying a glass of vodka and ice, and then building their own drink according to their taste. Temperatures were in the 60s and the Saucer raised their garage windows for one of the first times this season. Lots of people enjoyed their drinks in the fresh air.
There were a number of hot sauces to garnish the Bloody Marys, and the Saucer girls were giggling because one of them was named Butt Burner. I was going to post a link to it, but it seems there are a number of different hot sauces named Butt Burner. The one they had was green and was jalapeno-based.
“Paul, are you going to go to THAT PLACE again today?” Christina asked me. For the past two months, she has been less than thrilled that I leave at 3 now. I go to Hung Over Like a Bear brunch at the Blind Bear, whereas I used to hang at her bar all afternoon on Sunday.
“Christina, I have to leave at 2:58 today,” I explained. “I’m one day away from stealing the Bear’s mayorship.” On Foursquare, if you check in at a venue more days in the past 2 months than anyone else (only 1 checkin/day counts), you become “mayor” of that venue. When I checked in Saturday, the app told me that I only trailed mayor Puckett by one day. I had mentioned this to people, probably not a good idea because I knew it might get back to Puckett, making him eager to defend his hard-earned mayorship.
Puckett, however, is not a morning person, and by morning I mean 3 PM. I got to the Bear at 2:59, peered through the glass until Jamie unlocked the door, and then hit the “Check In” button and stole the mayorship. Jamie handed my my first PBR of the day. “And, of course, that one’s on us, because the mayor gets their first beer free every day,” he said.
Trouble is, that mayorship is going to be near impossible to keep. Now Puckett is only 1 day from stealing it back. I have a very strong suspicion that at least one other person is also within one day. This is going to seriously screw up my schedule. It’s Monday and I like to spend as much time as possible at Pint Nite at the Saucer (where I’m also mayor). But if I don’t get to the Bear right at 6 when it opens, the mayorship is probably gone. I expect that the Bear mayorship will be traded back and forth between several people for the next two weeks or so.
One of my Facebook friends has started using an app that looks like it has a lot of potential: Oink. “Discover and experience great things around you,” the site says. With Oink, you don’t rate venues, you rate items within those venues. So instead of rating the Saucer, I’d rate their Dos Equis Lager. Instead of rating the Majestic, I’d rate their filet mignon. I grabbed Oink from the App Store yesterday (it’s free). I hope to start sharing stuff on it this week.
I posted links to several excellent photo albums of Double J SmokeHouse and Saloon on the Moody Ques site. I forgot to bring my camera, so I only took a few photos with my iPhone. Glad others got more. Don’t forget that opening night is this Friday!
Plans for tonight: Defend the Blind Bear mayorship, then Pint Nite at the Saucer. It’s the league final table at poker at the Silly Goose, but as far as I know I didn’t qualify, so I get the night off from poker.