UrenragK wrote: ↑Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:02 am
Mossman wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 1:14 am
There are pubs in America? Most bars that I've been to that say "pub" on the sign are not really a pub. They think "pub" is just another word for "bar". Same thing with "tavern". And if a swillery claims to be an "English Pub", it's so pre-fab and fake you can't stand it... And it's still not a pub.
Perhaps I'm being too persnickety about semantics... I don't even know how many functioning pubs that meet the definition are left in the UK anymore.
The Rose & Crown is a proper pub, very authentic.
I'm with you on the American 'Pubs', and very much the same for the "Irish bars" around Europe that I have visited on my business travels.
There's one watering hole in my hometown (Lowell, MA) called the "Old Worthen House" that would qualify as a real "pub" or "tavern" (albeit an American one). Edgar Alan Poe stayed there for a while when he was trying to get some rich Boston socialite to marry him (on his "matrimony tour" of the east coast). The sign out front features a raven perched atop a large beer in recognition. They never did any drastic remodeling. It looks about the same as it did in the late 19th century, with gas lamps, a pressed tin ceiling and a belt-driven fan system that still works, etc. I'm sure the bar and a lot of the carpentry have been replaced over time, but they managed to preserve much of the rustic ambiance. The two floors above the bar that were used for lodging back in the day was just being used for storage space for much of time that I was a patron, but in the mid '90s they converted the second floor into a game room with pool tables, etc., and on the third floor they had live music. I actually played there once before I blasted out of that town.
Conversely, there was a another bar on the other side of town that I was a regular of (for obvious reasons) called: "Abbey Road Tavern". Which was decidedly
not a tavern, was in a building that could never have
been a tavern (retail property built in the '60s), and didn't even
try to resemble a tavern on the inside. The owner was just a big Beatles fan, and thought "Abbey Road Tavern" had a nice ring to it. The decor was all Beatles stuff, but it wasn't tacky or shmaltzy. It was a lot of tasteful prints and artwork. Eventually, the owner started commissioning me to do some artwork for the place. I got paid with bar credit... that was not a good idea... for
either of us.
