I wish i could say that i started this resolution out with a bang. unfortunately though, i started it by going to a bar at 6pm which obviously isn’t the liveliest and most fun time to check out a bar. why was i out drinking at 6pm? well, if you’ve got a resolution to hit up 50 new bars in one year, and you’re sitting around doing nothing, then hell, why not?
I chose whiskey thieves because it’s in the Tenderloin. Actually, i have a feeling that i might end up going to the Tenderloin a lot this year since it’s a neighborhood i really haven’t explored at all. yeah, it’s one of the most sketchy, filthy, and uninviting areas in SF and lots of people avoid it like the plague, but I get the feeling that there are really some cool hidden spots over there that don’t get the credit they deserve just because of their location.
in front of the bar, they had their logo shimmering and lit up through galvanized steel, which was a pretty cool effect and kind of had a techno-pirate kind of feel to it. inside, there was more galvanized steel along the wall and the place actually looked a bit fancy to be just another dive bar. as the name implies, this place is all about whiskey and they actually have a four page whiskey menu with a ton of different kinds. unfortunately, i couldn’t tell a $50 whiskey shot from a hole in the ground, and the only whiskeys i recognized on the menu were Jack Daniels and his other cheap-ass friends. I’ve drank my fair share of Jack, so i decided to try his cheapo friend called George Dickel, which ended up being pretty good. Other than whiskey, this place had a bunch of beers on tap including Chimay, and also sold my favorite beer, Hoegaarden, which you can’t find in a lot of places. Actually, just the fact that this place has Hoegaarden makes it good in my book, now if they could only get it on tap…
Like i said, it was only 6pm, and the bar had just opened for the night, so it was pretty dead. there were probably only like 5 other people in the place, so the three of us just sat around at a table and drank. the place had a pool table which we didnt try, and apparently Tom’s favorite pinball game ever, which we didnt get to try either since it was mysteriously unplugged soon after we arrived. they also had one of those tech jukeboxes that downloads songs off the internet, so we ordered a few songs, although it was kind of a rip off at $1.00 per song. our songs didnt play till about a billion songs later, which is weird cause i never saw anyone put a ton of money into the jukebox. i read later that Whiskey Thieves is one of the few bars in SF where you are allowed to smoke, but we weren’t sure of this at the time since there were some no smoking signs posted.
Anyways, overall i thought this place was really cool. the drinks were decently strong, selection of beer was good, and it seems like it’d be a fun place to hang out later in the night when there are more people. hopefully I’ll go back there some day and check it out again…
Whiskey Thieves is at 839 Geary St.
*v