There’s no doubt that the Chat Room Pub on Magnolia Avenue serves a vital, unique purpose here as an excellent non-traditional place to see excellent, non-traditional indie bands. I swung by a couple of Tuesday nights ago and caught a show by a killer San Francisco outfit, Birds & Batteries (whom I kept mistakenly referring to as “Bullets & Butterflies” – shows you how hip I am).
But if there’s one thing the Chat could use some help with, it’s the neighbors. Magnolia is lively during the day. Weeknights, though, that Southside strip is a ghost town. Even when the recently departed McHenry’s was up and running across the street, there wasn’t a lot of crossover foot traffic – the Chat is hip, and McHenry’s was, well, geared toward an older crowd. Brad Hensarling might change things around, though.
The co-owner of the Chat is opening a new bar in the space formerly occupied by McHenry’s. The Usual will be like a “feminized” version of the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, he said. Instead of big furniture, tons of different kinds of beers, and waitresses dressed like Catholic schoolgirls, The Usual will be sleek, the employees will dress casually, and cocktails will be the focus – not simply martinis but classic libations that few people under 50 probably know about, drinks like Aviations, Sidecars, Manhattans, and Caipirihnas. Plus, beer. Hensarling has been in the bar business for a while – he bought into the Chat a couple of years ago – but he’s never owned and operated his own place before. Over the next couple of months, he will hire staff, including seven bartenders, three barbacks, and a manager.
The 1,900-square-foot space will be non-smoking, though Hensarling is replacing the rear entrance with a patio where smoking will be permitted. Stay tuned. … Because some of you have inquired, here’s how we do the ballot every year. Nominees are selected by a nominating committee of about two dozen local promoters, booking agents, club owners, and some past Hall of Famers, plus associate editor Anthony Mariani, staff writers Jimmy Fowler, Eric Griffey, Jeff Prince, and contributors Caroline Collier, Justin Press, and Steve Steward. Four of our voting staff members — Collier, Griffey, Prince, and Steward – are musicians whose bands happened to make the cut this year.
None of those folks did anything wrong, but the situation has become a little too cozy – in the future no Weekly writer/musicians will be on the nominating committee. HOF’ers are chosen by a much smaller nominating committee: Mariani and a handful of past Hall of Famers. You may notice that some HOF’ers still appear on the ballot – that’s ’cause they haven’t won Artist of the Year two or more times, which is why you no longer see Flickerstick on there (they’ve won Artist of the Year, like, five times before we started the HOF several years ago) and why you do see Jhon Kahsen and Spoonfed Tribe.
Anyway, be sure to pick up next week’s paper to see the winners.
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
