Bar #59 Iggy's Bar (New Ownership)

After going to 58 bars you could worry that the mystery is gone in my relationship with every bar in Lakewood. Have I seen it all or is this simply going to be some mix or version of bars that I've been to? A bigger question I had going in was, how do I know nothing about this bar. Bar #59 is Iggy's Bar and it's the bar I knew the least about going in.


I approached an unnamed building with a couple beer signs on the front. This would lead to confusion throughout the night. There were 3 doors on the front of the building. I tried the farthest first, thinking the entrance would be marked. I was wrong and ended up having to use the first door I passed and the last possible option.

Upon entering Iggy's Bar you are first hit by COLOR. The wall behind the liquor bottles is lit up and then your eye is drawn to a crazy mural at the back of the bar. The second thing I noticed was a man yelling “This is why guys kill their wives!” It seems he was getting a divorce or his live in girlfriend left him. The only other person at the bar was a stereotypical Grateful Dead fan (actually a member of a Grateful Dead tribute band) that was trying to talk down his rage that night. Unfortunately, Kelly and Lynn had disappeared on the way to the bar; so I was sitting alone.

I ordered a Magic Hat #9. It's a lighter beer with a bit of fruit taste but only if your looking for it. It's also a bit bitter. I enjoy drinking it but it's a better representative of itself than of any genre of beer. Example being, it's not what you're looking for if looking for a fruity beer. It should be brought up that the bartender was quick to give extra beer options beyond what was on tap. He was my favorite combination of bartender characteristics, being laid back, helpful, and knows his product.

Throughout the evening, I had friends show up. Every arrival began with a confused text about where the bar was. Along with Kelly (wife), Andrea, and Lynn, Johnny made his first Every Bar appearance in months, and Missy of Lakewood's own All Dogs Heaven special needs dog rescue, who has been talking about making it to one of these since the beginning, finally made it with one bar to spare.

I'm currently reading Game of Thrones, actually I'm on the 5^th book of the series that begins with a book of that name. This lead me to decide to leave the land of beer and try a rum by the name of Kraken. I had never heard of it but others had. I don't like drinks mixed with coke so we figured out mixed drink. It wasn't called squid but something like it and tasted like vacation. I quickly had two, which helped one game I played later and humiliated me on the other.

They have bar bowling and much fun was had with it. I won, which always helps make things more fun. You would think you'd hear about more people being horribly injured by angry, drunk people throwing those heavyish wooden balls at people's heads. One point for humanity not being awful I suppose.

Iggy's Bar also has more pool tables than any bar in Lakewood.

After taking random pictures around the bar I saw that Andrea's painted toes were crazy reflected on the chrome of the bar. While taking a picture (seen below) the angry single man mentioned, a bit loudly, that she had some nice looking feet. I haven't written much about him since the beginning because once the women started arriving he went off to hide in the other room.

Lynn sometimes is referred to as angry. Usually not but she is more likely to be loud, tell you what's up angry than quietly brooding. Johnny, decided that he needed to quantify her rage on the punching bag machine. Johnny tried to incite her rage but only made her laugh. This is the force behind her laughter. Johnny followed beating the current high score.

Then it was my turn, but I decided that if I took a picture on a stool it would look like I was flying. The picture was at the wrong angle but regardless I was mistaken. During that one minute distraction the karaoke host piled all his equipment under the punching bag. So, we got him to move it. Now that all eyes were on me things went from bad to worse as whiffed on the first punch. So, we decided that I needed to give it another go. As I felt my foot slide on the floor under the bag, I knew that my fate of being mocked was sealed.

At this point, obviously, karaoke was coming so we were going. We had a damn good night, even if it did end at 10pm. When you have to work at 7am your day begins and ends at unfortunate hours.

I really liked Iggy's Bar. The service and selection were better than good. The atmosphere was cheery. The bar patrons were...well, they weren't there yet. I had a surprisingly good time and want to return to Bar # 59, Iggy's Bar. However, put up a damn sign!

Epilogue: Johnny went to the open mic the following night. He said the music was good and diverse. He also said it was hard to get much play as it favors the regulars over the newbies. The rest of this paragraph has been deleted prepublication for being too specific. Instead I'll leave you with a lesson: If we've never had a conversation, then we aren't friends and you shouldn't “friend” me on Facebook because you will be denied.

13403 Madison Ave

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Bar #47 Pacer's Restaurant (Deceased)

This week's bar faces the strongest opposition that I have seen so far. When announced that I was going here for this week's bar I had multiple negative comments with a slew of likes on them. Looking up reviews of the bar gives an odd split of very negative and positive reviews. My friends and I still ventured in to this week's bar ready for anything. Is bar #47 the worst bar in Lakewood or is Pacers Restaurant on pace for the best.

The first thing you see when you get to Pacers is a gigantic patio. It's in fact the largest one in Lakewood. So, if today's blog entices you to visit, then do it while it's warm enough to enjoy the giant outdoor space. The second thing we noticed was the entrance is a revolving door, always a good decision for drunk people. Of course the entrance is for the entire office building and not just the bar.

Upon entering the bar you are greeted by the hostess and a long room. The bar is split in four parts. The quarter you're in is just entrance area and bar seating. You can circle around the bar for more seating at the bar and play a variety of games like pool, darts and corn hole. There is of course the large patio area, that we chose against to hide from the insect hordes. The downside to living next to a Great Lake is it's also a great buzzy insect incubator. Lastly there is a bunch of seating at tables and booths ending with a large projection TV. The whole restaurant has a horse racing theme, which explains their name.

Just to get this part out of the way the service was good. They were friendly, answered my questions and put up with the my minor obnoxious ordering quirks that have slowly grown through this blog.

I ordered a Southern Tier Pumkin Ale. It had its own glass and they put cinnamon around the rim. Pumpkin is the primary flavor to the beer with a background taste of mild ale and a dusting of seasoning. I prefer a pumpkin ale to taste like pumpkin, not as an ingredient to be hidden. So I approve of the beer and will drink more of it once it's no longer summer.

Now onto food! There's free fresh popcorn. I ordered the garlic and chili wings both saucy and crispy. This didn't please me, they are very small and the crispiness eliminated almost all meatiness leaving them a bit tough. I also ordered the self proclaimed “America's Best Ribs.” They are not the best ribs in America. They are quite good. The sauce was solid, not standing out but enjoyable. The ribs were tender and meaty. Kelly ordered the quesadilla with very low expectations but they were good, being both light and non-greasy. Their ranch sauce/dressing was highly recommended. They also offer food, some nights, till 1 am.

Jonn doesn't like spicy foods for the most part. You may remember from a previous blog that he still tried the ghost pepper sauce and extremely regretted it. Jonn has been trying fight back against things that make him unhappy. He has a fear of heights but has been climbing mountains, very tall buildings and even trapezing. This is the reason that he tried the undead sauce, just because he doesn't like most hot things doesn't necessarily mean he won't like this one. The counter argument was presented: I don't like being hit in the face with a ball peen hammer. I'm not going to try getting hit by other hammers to see if I'll like a different one. The moral to our story is that there is a difference between facing new things and your fears and doing things that will make you unhappy in different ways.


Today's tip on women: Guys, when women have a cold with puffy eyes, and a runny nose. No matter how much “you don't mind”, they do not feel sexy. They also probably won't want your oozing face near theirs if you're the sick one. Tell them they're beautiful and give them some chicken soup because you know you're going to be a whiney jerk when you catch it from her.

Pacer's can stand as much as a restaurant with a bar as a bar with food. They have your normal bar activities including trivia, karaoke and free wifi. There's no problem just drinking during your visit. Pacer's has a large food selection levels and received mostly good reviews by the five of us. The beer selection is passable giving multiple options no matter what your beer taste is. The pricing is above dive bar but you can eat a meal for under $10. We left bar #47, Pacer's Restaurant, happy and so can you.

14600 Detroit Ave

216-226-2000

pacers1453@sbcglobal.net

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Bar #45 Eddy & Iggy's (Deceased)

Theme, every bar opens with one in mind. Beyond the obvious putting together a place where people drink alcohol, enjoy themselves, and spend enough money to make a profit, most bars open with a vision of what will set them apart from the masses. Some owners decide I'm going to make a place for people to watch sports. Others want a bar with great food. Yet other owners want a bar where people will get drunk on cheap booze. Regardless they all see their ideas as unique and usually personal to what they, themselves want from a bar. This week's bar opened with an obvious purpose but had to fall back to one of the cornerstones of running a popular business: the customer is always right. Bar # 45 is Eddy and Iggy's.

Earlier in the day I had a conversation with Johnny about where we were going for tonight's bar. It came down to me saying, “Not the Iggy's on Madison with the little neon sign; Eddy and Iggy's across from the Beck Center.” He quickly wrote down, “The Iggy's bar (unknown word) on Madison.” I have a habit of showing up a little late but this week I made sure I was on time. As you probably guessed I beat him there.

The inside of Eddy and Iggy's is a light yellow with an old style tin ceiling. There are lights and plasma TVs all over the place forcing you into a state artificial entertained euphoria. The walls are covered in St. Edwards and St. Ignatius sports items. That's why they are called Eddy and Iggy's, just in case you hadn't put that together yet. They even have a sign showing all of both schools championships and the winner of their football game that year, signified through the title of Holy War Winner. The bar crowd, though sparse tonight, was primarily there to watch the Indians game. There are also long rows of unique beer tap handles above the front windows.


Eddy and Iggy's produce their own beers. They have a huge lineup of beer options brewed through a third party brewery. Monday is growler day if you want to want to take some home with you at a discount. I was going to at least sample them all during my visit. Turns out their brewery has been expanding lately and hasn't had the space to brew the bar's beers, leaving me with only stouts. Honestly, I don't really like stouts. I can drink them, say why one is better than another and appreciate a good one but I'll rarely want one. Instead I ordered Great Lakes Brewery's Oktoberfest. It's crisp with a bit of fizz and tastes of fall spices. There isn't much actual beer taste to it, but GLB's Oktoberfest is still enjoyable to drink.

Well, Johnny still hadn't arrived so I ordered some food. I went with their Sweet and Spicy Tiger Sauce Wings because with that name how can you wrong. One way you can is by not having wings with bones. I went with their boneless variety instead. They were good and a little crunchy. The sauce is a bit spicy and smokey. They are a pleasing choice. They are also small and an order will not constitute a meal. Also, it's a little pricey for the amount of food.

Johnny finally called me from Iggy's. He didn't seem remember our actual conversation but it turns out the mystery word was “not” and wasn't “is”. Unfortunately, he road his bike. Johnny then had to ride back home and get his car.


Shortly after I finished eating he finally arrived and ordered his own wings (plane) and Oktoberfest. I decided I need more food and got funnel cake. It tasted good but was a little tough/chewy.

For second beer I went with Hala Kahiki Pineapple Beer. It's brewed by Rivertowne Pourhouse out of the zombie capital of the world, Monroeville, Pa. It tastes like pineapples, goes down smooth but wasn't too sweet. In other words, since this beer is highly drinkable and not a light beer, you will drink it quickly many times over and become drunk far quicker than you had planned.

Johnny order Eddy & Iggy's Black Storm. It's a complex stout with the characteristic sweetness mixed with a duel coffee and chocolate bitter taste.  It stays interesting from start to finish.  It's tap is a black bear.

They have pay phone recharging machine. You plug your phone in and then lock the door and charge your phone. The back panel of the machine was unlocked. It also, tells you what music is playing and I assume gives the option of changing it.

Mike was eventually our bartender. He was attentive and helpful on a slow night. He works here once a week. He can talk a lot about Iron Maiden, beer and baseball.

Eddy and Iggy's was originally and still somewhat is a high school alumni sports bar for St. Eds and St. Ignatius High School. They wore the catholic school girl or boys school uniforms for the first 6 months. Quickly it became apparent that besides fall Friday nights the crowd was younger than expected and didn't understand the choice in wardrobe. The bar now caters mainly to 20 somethings. They have karaoke every night. Many nights people from the Beck Center make their way over to up the quality level of singing a peg. You can play Pac Man on a 101” projection system. I didn't realize this so I didn't get to try it out.


They have a patio with tables, chairs and whatnot.


I'll probably be heading back because I didn't do any of their fun stuff: karaoke, bar brewed beer, wings with bones, corn hole, beer pong, burgers (They're supposed to have good burgers but I didn't get one. The only person I know that's gotten one, said that hers was frozen in the center. How was yours, let me know? It's good to have a consensus.), giant projection video game, patio...phone charging. Subtracting all the extra stuff and coming in while they're slow (the weekends are packed,) I enjoyed myself at Eddy and Iggy's. The bartenders were friendly and attentive. I liked the beers I drank and their options. The food has its ups and downs but was tasty. Eddy and Iggy's has so much awesome going on that I still need to try that I have to go back and so should you. It is also my 45^th bar.

17900 Detroit Ave

216-228-1212

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Bar #35: Corky's Place

The second bar of the preplanned bars was put on hold till we could get all our friends that wanted to do karaoke. Of course after 8 months the 2 original friends that wanted to come didn't. However, it was my friend Aiden's going away party; so, we had plenty of people to go to a memorable night at bar #35, Corky's Place.

My business, Pawsitive Influence, is a door down from Corky's Place. You would think I would be heading over there all the time. I run a dog daycare and bring my dogs to work with me. Since, going to Corky's requires me to drive home and then return back to work I haven't felt compelled to make the trip. Plus, everyone that I know that's been to Corky's has been there for a specific reason karaoke. I don't sing. Tonight, I would sing karaoke for the first time in 15 years.

Corky's Place did know I was coming. They did nice things like reposting that I would be there Friday night, giving me a free beer, and putting up a Every Bar in Lakewood graphic on the screen. If there is one thing I have found during this blog is that if a bar is given an upper hand then bad luck or weirdness will ensue. The first of these happened before I even arrived. I got a text from Katie that there was a fight. A couple minutes later there was a second fight (only verbally this time.) That was the end of any violence of the evening. The scuffles were between the new bouncer and the previously fired bouncer who are normally friends. The new bouncer was victorious and like a Bumble, bounced the old bouncer.

The atmosphere was dark and taverny. This helped make the open layout feel intimate while drawing your eyes to all the entertaining features. These included ping pong, a bowling machine, pool, Golden Tee, free pop corn, a shiny bar section and, of course, karaoke. None of these were the first thing I noticed upon entering Corky's Place. What we were all immediate spell bound by was a very drunk man probably named Tom yelling out made up lyrics to a song while being a stumble away from face planting.

Johnny started us off with a brave choice, Pepper by Butthole surfers. It was better than Tom. Sorry Tom. The nice thing about karaoke is no matter how bad you sing there's always someone worse...or at least your friends will tell you that there was. I was the worst of us but that's coming up.

The list didn't have all the songs we wanted but the DJ was willing to look them up to see if he could download them. Normally we picked songs via a cracked ipod. There wasn't a printed list.

I went with Me & Julio Down by the School, it was a rash decision once my first three choices weren't available. It was also the wrong version so my timing was off. For normal people this would have been fine but as my voice acts like I'm tone deaf; I'm not. I hear that I'm wrong without the ability to fix the issue. After failing I went back to drinking (it's hard to mess that one up.)

Alcohol drank that night: mead and hard cider at the first bar, then Sam Adams, a jello shot, Bell's Oberon and to finish things off a can of Busch. I find Sam Adams to be the defining line between craft beer and corporate beer. Bell's Oberon is still awesome. Busch is not good, it has a kind of stale sweetness that probably comes from being made from corn.

The high and low points of the evening came one after another. Aiden got the bar excited by his rendition of Baby Got Back, including most of the bar yelling “Yeah!” at the appropriate times. My rendition, even with two of my friends backing me up, of the Boba Fett Rap was disastrous. It was probably played too fast, since between the three of us no one could keep up for more than two lines.

Rules to follow about karaoke.

1. Singing unhappy songs well is better than happy songs unwell. Example: Me and Julio vs my friends' Radio Head and Fiona Apple songs.
   
   
2. If you sing show tunes, you are never as good as you think you are, but you can pretend this is because of the speakers.
   
   
3. If you don't sing, you can't make fun of other people who do.
   
   
4. No matter how bad, drunk, sober you are compared to everyone else sing and have fun anyway.
   
   
5. If you are stumbling around drunk we, probably, don't think you are singing well, sexy or funny; and yes, we are laughing at you. (The tough love part of todays blog.)

The DJ was pretty good and usually funny. He played funny clips in between singers.

I met a fan that was real happy with my previous Corner Pub review and said I hit it right on the nose. Compliments and criticisms are always encouraged, more so the compliments. I also, met another person that had just heard that I existed and was there. She stood in front of me as I tried to tape my friends sing Bohemian Rhapsody. But I never have a problem with any of you coming over to talk and it is a very long song. It was made even longer by randomly halfway through jumping into fast forward. You could see their brains crash to a halt the word speed hit 5x. It was fixed and they pulled it off. They also received free shots for their trouble.

Eventually, the lights came up and it was time to go. We had a really good night and saw a handful of really creepy people (you can't have karaoke without a couple.) Most of the people there were normal enough, even saw a random friend. We really didn't have anything bad to say about our experience.

I got the lunch special later that week. A small pizza and a beer/pop for $5. It was good for $5 and cooked in the toaster over in like 3 minutes.

Fun fact: Corky's Place is named after the son of the original owners, my landlord. When they were registering the bar they needed to give it a name, which they had't come up with yet. So on the spot they named it after the kid.

Corky's Place is not your average bar. There is plenty to do there and karaoke Wednesday through Saturday. There's a wide range of beer available but mainly your standard corporate varieties on tap. There's a wide range of patrons that will always give you someone worth meeting and someone that will be refereed to in a later conversation “Did you see that crazy guy/lady/...person” Regardless, Corky's Place, bar #35, is a lot of fun and lived up to its reputation as the place you must do karaoke at. Fun enough in fact, that I returned or am returning, depending when you read this, the following Saturday, May the 4^th Be with You.

13302 Detroit Ave

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