I walked to Calhoun’s Sports Bar & Grill on GE Patterson Avenue to watch the Cotton Bowl this morning.\u00a0 It is only the bar’s second day of operation, and they’re still putting finishing touches on, so I declined to take pictures.\u00a0 However, I do have a full report about Calhoun’s.<\/p>\n
The first thing I noticed when I walked in was that they had five large flat-panel TVs, perfect for watching the game from any angle.\u00a0 They have DirecTV, which is a good thing because Comcast Cable was out for part of the morning Downtown.\u00a0 The three largest and most visible TVs have DirecTV HD.<\/p>\n
At the time I walked in, about 10:45 AM, there were two bowl games on – the Cotton Bowl (Arkansas vs. Missouri) and the Outback Bowl (Tennessee vs. Wisconsin).\u00a0 All five TVs were tuned to the Arkansas game.\u00a0 NICE.\u00a0 Eventually some people came in who didn’t have such good taste in football teams, and two of the TVs were switched to the Tennessee game, but the sound was kept on for the Arkansas game.<\/p>\n
The layout is as follows:\u00a0 5 tables in front; long bar that seats maybe 15; rails on the wall opposite the wall that could hold probably another 10.\u00a0 They’re still working on the upstairs, but there will be more seating up there.<\/p>\n
They sell beer only, with 7 draft beers, 8 premium bottled beers, and 12 domestic bottled beers.\u00a0 My picks for the best beer values:\u00a0 16 oz. draft pints of Guinness or Stella Artois for $3.50; any of the three varieties of Yuengling (regular, light, black & tan) for $3.\u00a0 They have PBR in bottles.\u00a0 John D will be happy to hear that they have Bud Light bottles.<\/p>\n
There’s bar mix to munch on, and if you’re hungrier than that they have a menu of very basic bar food in the $3.50-$8.50 range.\u00a0 The bartender recommended the hot and spicy drummies in particular, six large, meaty spicy drumsticks (legs, not wing drummies) with ranch or blue cheese for $6.<\/p>\n
They’re getting Wi-Fi and were trying to get the router installed while I was in there.\u00a0 Should be up within a few days, I would think.<\/p>\n
They’re still working out the hours, but for right now they’re open 3 PM to 3 AM weekdays and noon to 3 AM weekends.\u00a0 However, for important sports events such as March Madness, they’ll open early.\u00a0 “We’ll probably open at 8 AM for the World Cup,” said the bartender.<\/p>\n
They’re very interested in being a bar where the locals in the South Main area hang out.\u00a0 In fact, the bartender said he’s looking forward to the Blue Monkey opening, because it will draw more people to the area.\u00a0 “People can come down here and hang out at the Monkey for a while, then Earnestine’s for a while, then Calhoun’s for a while,” he said.<\/p>\n
He also told me that they’re very interested in the “sports” part of being a sports bar.\u00a0 “Say you’re a Packers fan,” he said.\u00a0 “If you tell us that you’re going to bring in 10 or 15 friends, then we can run specials while that game’s on.”<\/p>\n
I like the place.\u00a0 It’s a good, basic little bar where you can go drink a beer and watch the game on TV.\u00a0 Not fancy at all, but it doesn’t need to be.\u00a0 Will keep it in mind as an alternative to the Saucer and McGuinness when there’s a sports event I want to see.<\/p>\n
Slowly recovering from last night.\u00a0 We started the evening at the Majestic Grille, where Patrick followed through on his promise to cook me a ribeye that would make me forget my bad experiences with Bonanza ribeyes from my childhood.\u00a0 My $250 worth of Majestic gift cards are redeemable beginning today, so Patrick will be cooking me a lot more dinners in the months to come.\u00a0 Next up on my list of steaks to try will be the filet au poivre, a peppercorn-encrusted filet with Dijon mustard brandy sauce.<\/p>\n
From there we moved on to a private party at Number 10 Main.\u00a0 It started off slow, with a bunch of dudes in blazers and frayed baseball caps standing around the TV watching the Auburn-Clemson game.\u00a0 But as the alcohol started flowing, the party became more fun.\u00a0 The gang ended up in my apartment and we watched the ball drop at the stroke of midnight on my TV.\u00a0 That was the most people I’ve ever had in my apartment, and I didn’t realize how much heat people generate!\u00a0 It got so warm in there I had to turn the air conditioner on.\u00a0 We partied for about an hour after that and then called it a night.\u00a0 Some of the gang headed in the direction of Hoop’s Bar, but I was already home and decided to stay there.<\/p>\n
Home is where I am now too, having walked back in disappointment after the Hogs lost to Missouri.\u00a0 Missouri really should have been in a BCS bowl.\u00a0 Experimenting with my phone this afternoon, and have discovered that with WordPress I can post from my cell phone, something I couldn’t do with the supposedly new and improved Blogger.\u00a0 That means I can once again drunk-post from the Saucer or anyplace I happen to be that has Wi-Fi.\u00a0 Heh heh.\u00a0\u00a0 Almost 5… gonna clean up from last night’s party, then head down the street for an evening of beer, trivia, and waitresses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I walked to Calhoun’s Sports Bar & Grill on GE Patterson Avenue to watch the Cotton Bowl this morning.\u00a0 It is only the bar’s second day of operation, and they’re still putting finishing touches on, so I declined to take pictures.\u00a0 However, I do have a full report about Calhoun’s. The first thing I noticed … Continue reading “First visit to Calhoun’s Sports Bar & Grill”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}