My buddy Chris Salazar is one of the best-placed beacons of the WacoFork wire. He's friendly and comes across a lot of information while working at Shorty's Pizza Shack and he passes it along to me.
On Wednesday evening, Salazar told me about a new bar called Nite Court across from the court house. I guess I wanted this to be a quaint, Murphy Brown-esque pub that quietly served customers in the Columbus or Washington Avenue area near the county court house.
As it turns out, it's just off Franklin on 8th Street across from the federal court house and near my old employer, the Waco Tribune-Herald. I know my friend Ned Pedersen, who designs the cover of the Trib's sports page most days, used to go there for an after-work drink before it was painted and re-branded.
The idea of a neighborhood pub that attracts customers with similar jobs, interests or backgrounds is a pretty romantic idea. To some extent I think this is present in one way or another at many of our local establishments. Whenever I'm at The Dancing Bear, I usually socialize with grad school students or young professionals. Same goes for Barnett's.
The best I've ever experienced was The Dunvegan in St Andrews, Scotland. It's a magical place where traveling golfers of all rank and age can converse with caddies and other native Scots in the home of golf. I wrote a book about it, which you can read at intheburn.com and now on Kindle.
Other than shamelessly plugging other projects, I suppose I'm making the point that your local watering hole is going to naturally bring in folks who know your name and they're always glad you came. Just in case you want to be where you can see troubles are all the same.
When I was a kid watching Cheers in the 1980s, I had no inclination that my life would turn out to be so much like that of Cliff Clavin.
One more bite: Speaking of local pubs and Scotland, Barnett's now serves Springbank, which is probably my favorite brand of Scotch and is also extremely difficult to find at American bars.
