There are nights when I get drunk, and there are nights when I have a drink. In the case of the latter, I find it best to find a sparsely populated bar with muted lighting and silent TVs. I like these environments because they make it easy to slink onto a stool, order a drink, and fade into the background.
If you pace yourself and order politely, the bartender will pay attention to you the way a person notices the shadows of a face in the random splotches of a stucco wall — you’ll catch her eye, but as soon as she moves, you’re invisible again, at least until the light’s right and you fall into her peripheral vision. Or maybe it just seems like that. I tend to think bartenders almost always know what you’re up to, and the best ones know when you’re content to become one with the furnishings and just contemplate the universe and shit.
While I normally shoot for this sort of introspectiveness at a place like A Great Notion, I managed, rather curiously, to reach a meditative state at All-Star Sports Bar & Grill on Camp Bowie Boulevard by Bryant-Irvin Road recently.
I say curiously because for me sports bars are generally bad spots for any kind of meditative state. By “generally,” I mean “without exception,” and by “bad,” I mean “the worst possible.” But for the umpteenth week in a row, as I drove down Camp Bowie and scanned the Ridglea Theater’s marquee to see which metal band has the stupidest name, my gaze was inexorably drawn to the neon beer signs in the window of what used to be Café Aspen. For weeks I’ve grudgingly conceded that I might as well check it out, but most of the time I have that conversation while on the way to nearby Taco Cabana. “Maybe on the way home,” I always tell myself –– but never follow through. Nobody likes to go out in public after he’s spilled queso on his pants.
In other words, I couldn’t stop into this bar as if it were the last thing to do on a list of late-night errands, even if the only two items listed above it would be 1. Get flautas and queso. 2. Wait until you get home. I had to, you know, make plans. So I left the house last week intent on giving the All-Star Sports Bar the old college try. My transcripts would suggest this is a half-hearted try at best, but you know what I mean.
I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Where dive bars are quiet, dark, and intimate, sports bars are usually the exact opposite. And true to form, when I walked in there were a bunch of pool tables laid bare by glaring overhead lights. I ran into a buddy just as some dude had grabbed the karaoke mic to try his hand at Skynyrd’s “Ballad of Curtis Loew.” My friend pointed toward the back of the room. “The bar’s back there, actually,” he said. “So’s the patio.”
Indeed, the main bar was tucked in between the billiards/karaoke room and the late Café Aspen’s sprawling back patio. The contrast between the billiards/karaoke room and the main bar was staggering. I’ve often wondered what a modern take on a ’70s neighborhood dive would look like. Now I know. It’s the All-Star: warm, wooden décor, tall mirrors, and the kinds of specials that you’d find at an authentic ’70s dive like A Great Notion. Of all the All-Star’s specials –– there are several –– the best has to be $2 domestic bottles all day every day. And since the place is a bar and a grill, there’s food: On Mondays from 7 ’til 11 p.m., appetizers are half-price. Weekends feature live music (mostly Texas Music and cover bands), but if you can’t wait that long to party, there’s a bikini night on Wednesdays. I gathered this info from clumps of text chalked across a large blackboard on a wall. “I should probably go to one of those,” I thought.
As if on cue, a hot blonde entered along with her equally hot brunette friend, and they ordered a round of shots for themselves and these two dudes already seated at the bar. The blonde looked like the star of a telenovela, and I smirked when she raised a toast in Spanish. Then they all went outside, possibly to shoot pool (there’s a table and a bar out there too), possibly to escape the rendition of Foreigner’s “Juke Box Hero” barreling in from the karaoke room. Around 1:30, the bartender started to pull up the rubber shot-mats. She left me alone with my thoughts, but she also ran my tab. No matter how good a person is at camouflage, nobody’s invisible at last call. — Steve Steward
Contact Last Call at lastcall@fwweekly.com.
