Bar #57 Waterbury Coach House (Deceased)

Welcome to the #1 ranked blog in Cleveland. Thank you readers for all your help. I'll try to keep up serving you and the bars of Lakewood the best I can. This blog actually begins after I picked up my award in Ohio City. We were tempted to head over to one of the hip Cleveland bars; but then decided that; when you can pick from any bar in Lakewood, why go anywhere else. That and I needed a blog for this week. There was only one choice I could make and steak was on special at bar #57, The Waterbury Coach House.

When entering the bar from the parking lot you are greeted with a foreboding dark steel door. I believe this is simply because it lowers your expectations briefly to the classy bar inside and probably to keep out the face stabbers after closing. The Waterbury Coach House gives you a mixture of vintage posters, classy surroundings, a diner feel with a splash of Italian. We were the only people in the bar below 45 years old. Jeopardy and the Indians game were on the TVs.

There are no beer taps. They have a standard selection of domestics, plus Great Lakes Brewing Company's Dortmunder. I went with the latter because you really can't go wrong with that direction. To describe what a standard beer should taste like is to describe Dortmunder. For those of you that prefer a dark beer, or a hoppy beer, or even a fruity beer that's all well and good, but that still requires an addition to the ideal beer. Even if it's not the beer you're in the mood for you won't complain about it. It's a good beer to compare the rest to, too.

They appear to have a larger selection of wine but no beer/wine list was provided.
You're going to spend more than 10 bucks a plate but you get multiple sides and it feels like a meal at a restaurant not simply getting bar food. The salad was fine. The buns were warm. The steak fries were fine. The ribeye was thin and a bit fatty. It was also large, cooked to perfection (real medium rare), and required no steak sauce to cause me to inhale it.

Our bartender was polite and took care of all of our needs. She was professional and had a good repertoire with the everyone that came in.

I had a conversation with an elderly man about the Pittsburgh, Pirates. He has always been an Indians fan, but added the Pirates onto his favorite list back in '54 when one of his favorite players were traded to them. It obviously takes more than a player moving to make you a fan of a new team *coughHeatcough*. It took the trade to get his notice but it was a similarity that has kept him paying attention over the years. Both Cleveland and Pittsburgh are smaller city markets but carry major teams. Where other teams rely on our largest cities or just claim geographic regions, these teams represent a different kind of a fan and relationship. These small cities that have put together great teams that stand (more or less) against the titan cities with vast financial and populations. It's more than a simple Napoleon complex, the teams become a part of their cities identities.


Here's the key, the cities aren't great because of these teams, these teams are great because of the cities. Cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh don't see themselves as small cities that are lucky to have big teams. When we refer to our teams as we, we aren't saying we're on their team, we're saying they're on ours. We are great and our team must reflect that. We thrive because we believe we can. We make our city an extension of ourselves. We share our city's every win and every defeat as our own.

Cleveland/Lakewood aren't simply our cities, they're our neighborhood. Our professional sports teams are in turn our neighborhood's teams. I think this is what makes us friendlier, is that we carry that neighborliness with us and it doesn’t get wiped out in the feeling of the big anonymous city. Every bar in Lakewood are a reflection of our neighborhood city ideals. They are all unique, personal and, mostly, strive to make themselves worthwhile. We in turn want them to succeed; if our city is full of these great businesses it in turn reflects our own potential greatness. Like our teams, we share their wins with them.

The Waterbury Coach House has good service and a loyal clientele. Their food has a better than average diner quality to it. They have an average beer and wine list with no taps. The average age of their customers is around 55. I enjoyed my time at bar #57, The Waterbury Coach House, where they'll treat ya nice and make you a darn good steak!

13333 Madison Ave
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Bar #24 Deagan's Kitchen and Bar

There is one bar that is always brought up, when the question of the best place to eat or drink in Lakewood is asked. This isn't because they have bar games, bands or have the cheapest whatever in town.  Tonight, I see how they compare to every bar in Lakewood. Deagan's is bar #24 but are they the #1 bar?

We arrived at 7pm on a Wednesday. The bar was full without even two adjacent spots at the bar. It was vegetarian night. Of course there's a special Monday through Thursday so Deagan's is regularly busy. Deagan's environment is what one could call cool pub. The walls are made of wood and bare brick covered with chalk board beer signs, local art and even antique style light bulbs and fixtures. These combined features create an environment that is both trendy and comfortable. Which is good because if you come during dinner time you'll probably have at least a 25 minute wait.

We sat down and of course added an extra person. They were very accommodating and allowed us to add a chair to the table even with the space restrictions. Our waitress and food came often enough that it never felt like were were waiting for service.

I drank North Coast's Scrimshaw Pilsner. It was a good pilsner. It wasn't so strong that it wasn't easily drinkable but not so bland that you'd forget it was beer. Deagan's only carries higher quality beers, which makes their prices, starting at $5, more palatable.

The food was good. I started with their Bavarian Pretzel. Its dipping sauce was amazing. For dinner, I had the mac and cheese. It was ok. The cheese sauce was a bit too thin. Luckily, Kelly had the steak, (yes steak on vegetarian night) it was really good. They only have one type of chicken wing, with an amazing mixture of jam and awesome. I do miss their buffalo wing from the wing crawl.

One problem we did run into that night was the monologue. This is a threat to any evening of drinking and any of us could be the next culprit. The alcohol dulls that little part of the brain that allows you to stop talking and pay attention to the look on your friend's glazed over faces. My usual fouls:

1) High school cross country/track, there is always that little part of your brain that wants to talk about your entire high school sports experience in as few breaths as possible.

2) Dogs, this is actually a double foul with me. I work with dogs and no matter how much you like your job, nobody likes your job when you talk about it for 20 straight minutes. The second foul is talking about the funny things your dog/cat/child does. This is fine in proportional amounts but can easily become a half hour of talking about where your dog/cat/baby has pooped.

R!ch Cihlar, Pop Shop

3) The repeat story, a funny or exciting story that gets a reaction out of people is possibly the most evil of all monologues. Every time this story is told, it will get a little longer, probably still funny though. Unfortunately, your close friends and what-not get to hear this hilarious ever growing anecdote over and over again. Once, they have heard this story 5 times, they can legally murder you in the state of Michigan. (This is the foul in question this evening.)

I think it's time for all of us to admit that we all do this now and again. Once, we all agree that we're all secret monologuists, then we can agree that we are allowed to stop other people's monologues once they have gone too long. Right now, I'm thinking you can just say “Cut! Thank you for your monologue but I think we should now talk about cheese.” Change this as needed.

Post dinner Deagan's clears out a bit and more so resembles a pub where people can all easily converse with each other and hang around the bar.

This was hidden in the wall.

This summer Deagan's is opening a second bar in Lakewood.  Its newest creation will be a wine bar in the strip, which includes Discount Drug Mart.  Deagan's says, "We're looking to do a wine bar... There aren't wine bars in Lakewood.  We want to do something that Lakewood is lacking." The food options will be "limited and simple."  "We want to add more to downtown Lakewood.  We love it here.  If I could open 15 businesses in Lakewood, I would.  Between the city and the residents, I don't have a single negative thing to say about Lakewood in my entire experience here."1

Paul Jacklitch, BWU

Deagan's has some of the best food in Lakewood. They have a nice atmosphere and decent beer selection.  Any bar/restaurant that strives to be elite is one that you won't be able to just sit down without a wait at and one you where you'll be spending at least $20 but probably $40 on your first night. That in mind, you must go to Deagan's because it is probably better than where you were planning on going and it'll be worth it. 

Jonn Sokol

Awesome: Atmosphere, Craft Beer, Gastropub Food

14810 Detroit Ave

http://deagans.com/

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1. The information of this paragraph comes directly from Patch.com's article.  All quotes are from Dan Deagan.

Bar #17: Rush Inn

You know what would be funny? If I waited two weeks to write my blog for bar #17 because it's called the Rush Inn and I didn't rush to get it done. Yeah, if you're pretending to believe that, then you can pretend it was funny too. Anyway, I was told the Rush Inn is great and it is.

Kelly and I arrived at the Rush Inn with the mission to figure out where to seat 4-10 people. The Rush Inn has plenty of seating a long bar and a room full of booths with giant walls. We went with the bar because we didn't know if anyone could find us in a wooden booth fortress city. There is a little bar in the city's side as well. It was probably better that we went with the bar side because we would have pulled one of the more annoying scenarios that you can put waiting staff through. Our friends slowly showed up every 15 minutes or so for the next 3 hours.

I was told by our Rush Inn expert that I was to get the hot Parmesan wings. I did and they are my new favorite wings in Lakewood. Now I have to go get more tonight! All the food was good. Practically every night something good is on special. They even have a $15 steak which I'm sure is great. But it is not on special.

The service and prices were good.

The beer selection is diverse. I got some kind of cider that I'll edit in later once I figure out what it was. I like hard cider between the Octoberfest and Christmas ale seasons. It's apply but in a manly way...well, it's better than some kind of lemon flavored Zima. I hate Zima. It's like someone fermented Clear Pepsi, which I didn't like either.

Bar talk of the night: is 3 Musketeers candy bar good? Though the vote was against it in the beginning it still won the night. I like 3 Musketeers! But I also respect it. Most chocolate bars need to rely on some combination of nuts, caramel or random crunchy things. 3 Musketeers, however, win with just chocolate. Payday decided that it would take the other end of the spectrum and went from a candy bar to glued together trail mix.

Rush Inn has good food and beer. It has a great atmosphere and it's patrons love it. Everything is not a bed of roses at the Inn. There aren't really cheap nasty beers, any chance of mostly naked painted women, and the excitement of possibly getting stabbed is nonexistent. I'll still go back to the Rush Inn, in fact I'm going tonight. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

• Awesome: Food, Customer Service, Water Buffalo Head, Booths
• 
  
• 17800 Detroit Ave
• 216-221-3224
• Rush Inn