It's odd how things work out sometimes. I recently accepted a job with a different company, and while I'm excited about the new opportunity, I'm bummed to be leaving a lot of things behind, in particular this column. Writing a farewell seemed like an intimidating task, considering there are so many places I haven't reviewed yet, and I wanted my final column to highlight a really interesting, fun night.
With that in mind, Sarah and I rounded up a handful of visiting friends who are always interesting and fun, and set out for a Saturday night at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville in the Flamingo. I hadn't been there before, but a few people told me they liked it and that I ought to check it out. Maybe it's that I didn't have a lost shaker of salt to search for, but while I understood why Margaritavilla could be appealing (it's huge, the upstairs balconies are awesome, and the restaurant-bar-dance-floor layout offers something for almost everyone), I just wasn't feeling it that night. Neither were my friends, so we headed out after just a few drinks. After much deliberation, Sarah and I ended up taking our seven friends on a tour of the Green Valley Ranch's assorted watering holes before giving up and heading home.
Still intent on having a big night out, I planned to get a bunch of friends together Sunday night, but wound up staying home to help my roommate, a teacher, prepare Easter stuff for her students. While we filled plastic Easter eggs with jelly beans and talked about places I could go for my final column, I realized I wasn't going to be excited about any bar because I was going to miss writing Down the Hatch.
Monday, Sarah and I again set out for one last night of drinking and telling. I still hadn't made up my mind on a bar, so we stopped by the Freakin' Frog on Maryland Parkway for a kidney punch (Guinness and Framboise) while we decided on our next, and final, stop. Jessica met up with us there and we ordered a round. While Sarah took photos, Jessica and I talked about the end of the column. One of things I enjoyed most about writing Down the Hatch is that it gave me a great excuse to go to bars I wouldn't normally visit. It also gave me the opportunity to tell an audience about the bars I like around town, and why I like them. And it didn't hurt that when I went out with Sarah and her camera in tow, I met a lot of interesting people and learned a lot about whatever bar I happened to be at.
As the conversation switched to reminiscing about our favorite adventures, I found myself ordering another round of kidney punches and a basket of the Frog's awesome cinnamon- and honey-drizzled sweet potato fries instead of asking for the check. The mellow crowd and great mix of bluesy, '60s and '70s rock was perfect, and the girls and I were having a great time kicking back. It began to seem fitting, in a coming-full-circle sort of way, that I was having my final drink at one of the bars I wrote about in my first Down the Hatch column.
Maria Phelan set a new bar for drinking. We wish her well. And premium.