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| Taken by Pug Mahones |
There are many important parts to creating a successful bar.
Selection, value, food, entertainment, and atmosphere are some
obvious pieces to the puzzle of building a bar that will survive.
This week's bar did well in many respects but excelled in one in
particular, service. Bar #52, is Pug Mahones, home to one of our
newest favorite bartenders.
This week's Every Bar in Lakewood's trip came on the heels of the
Winter Vortex. A two day siege of wind chills reaching -40 degrees,
bypassing the frigid temperatures of the North Pole. As the
temperatures raised back up to a balmy fucky cold again, cabin fever
screamed out that I needed to see people, and numb the memories of
the being numb, via beer. So, we set off into the new, pretty, and
less painful snowfall. The snow did prevent me from getting a
picture of the front sign.
Upon entering the bar, 10 minutes late, to a mildly busy Pug
Mahones I had to preform the always awkward, walking around the bar
looking for friends that haven't arrived. It is a mixture of your
eyes darting around wildly and walking slowly in random directions
like a ghost from Pacman. It turned out I was there first. I
immediately sent out the customary text messages to everyone else
making them feel bad for showing up late. At least until they
realized they arrived only a couple minutes after I did. This
included Jon who was almost standing behind me as I hit send.
Pug Mahones looks like your standard bar (wood booths, big TVs, an
assortment of beer items on the walls) but with a lot of extras. The
booths all come equipped with their own small flat screen TVs. There
are a couple video games including a Pacman machine with a bunch of
Atari games included. You've also got foosball, skee ball, and a
punching bag machine.
Pug Mahones has a level assortment of beer options with as many
domestic favorites as interesting craft beers that you may not have
tried before. I went with, what may be the only pumpkin beer still
on tap in Lakewood, Crooked River's Eerie Nights Pumpkin Ale. It was
a good beer that embraced its pumpkin side without hiding it with too
many spices. Eerie Nights was little on head but big on aroma.
Looking online for this brewery you would think they were out of
business. Make sure you try their beers while you can. They may not
be long for this world, but if the rest of their beers are this good
I hope they stick around.
We were greeted by Chrissy the bartender, once we had come to
terms with both being late but almost the exact same amount of late.
She was both friendly and engaging, the type of bartender that feels
like your friend by the time your first beer is paid for. She was
enthusiastic and knowledgeable about craft beer and the bar she
worked in. Also, even though she was working a full bar plus our
table, she never left us waiting. This is one of the major
ingredients that allows bars to be successful.
Having a bartender that one's customers will want to keep visiting
means repeat customers and creates a bar that survives for the long
haul. When it comes down to it, a bar's personnel is the real
difference between different bars. There are always multiple bars
with the combination of good food, types of beers, prices,
entertainment and so forth that you're looking for, but having a
staff you get along with and does their job well is always the game
changer.
Pug Mahones is currently having menu issues. They didn't have
enough for the 6 of us; they only had two to spare. There were also
misprints throughout it. If you are bored you can play find the
baccon! This is probably due to it being designed for free. As a
person that's done a lot over the years for nonprofits it always
annoys me when volunteers slack off because they aren't actually
getting paid. If you want to do something, do it right because, it's
still a reflection on you. I'll assume I've been holding up with
this ideal on the blog because the internet is rarely kind to any
kind of weakness or failure. On a positive note, the menu did have
lots of options and a new menu should be coming out soon.
I was told by a random patron that the burgers, which were also on
special, were good. I got the bacon cheddar burger with homemade
fries. It was better than average. Everyone was happy with their
food with one exception. The cook forgot our pregnant friend's BLT.
Perhaps, he is a thrill seeker that enjoys tempting painful death.
We gave it more time than we should have since all of her ingredients
were included on my burger that I received 15 minutes previous. I
told Chrissy and she practically ran into the back and made sure that
it was done at the maximum speed possible.
We made sure that we cashed out when the shift change was
happening; so that we could tip Chrissy for her service. Remember,
if your bartender/waitress takes care of you then you need to take
care of her or him.
The patrons of Pug Mahones all seemed fairly random, not falling
into any type or age bracket. They were neither angry nor rowdy.
They were just people content to concentrate on their drinking and
talking to their immediate neighbors. Classic rock was played all
night on the juke box by a single person and his wife...or daughter,
we weren't able to figure that one out...People watching is fun!
Pug Mahones is a pretty cool bar. It's a good place to watch the
game. I love having the option of the little personal TVs in case
you just wanted to watch curling this winter. They have a lot of
games you can play. I was happy enough with the food and beer
options, as most people will be. On occasions, in the past, I've had
to say that I don't know if the service is always bad or if this was
just a bad night. This time I have the opposite to say, I had great
service but can't guarantee that it's always in the running for best
service in town. Especially, when one considers their menu
situation. Bar #52 has a lot to offer and great service offering it.
It's time you accept their offer.
17625 Detroit Rd
216-228-8874
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The music of the night was famous rock songs of the 70s and 80s.
I assume this was to get everyone ready for karaoke. This brought up
the conversation of, are these songs actually good, or are they only
good because of the memories attached to them. Do I like Hotel
California, which some people may argue is dreadful, because it's
great or because my parents thought it was great and it was ingrained
into me? Is The Eye of the Tiger amazing or does it feel that way in
my head because I ran listening to it in cross country in high school
and saw a montage in a movie containing it? The song, I'll Be
Watching You, sticks out in many people's heads as a love ballad,
especially after hearing it at so many weddings to the setting of
people in new love. Is a song about Sting going mildly insane and
stalking his Ex-wife a love song because our experiences dictate it?
This effect of the events of our lives defining our perceived quality
of music becomes apparent when we think to our favorite type of music
and the bands that really stick out. Theses tend to be the music
from our teenage years, which is always better than the music of
today. The alternative rock of the 90s sticks out to me but perhaps
it's only because that's what I left my childhood listening to. Our
teenage genre of music becomes ingrained in our foundations of who we
are as a person. Wonderwall probably does suck but it carries a lot
of good memories with it, so it's good to me. Luckily, during
karaoke, you can fake the effect of the songs sounding good with
proper amounts of alcohol.
