Before we begin bar hopping again (See Part 1), a couple quick observations about the Super Bowl 48 OC Beach Bar scene:
1. This Super Bowl was the most watched ever with 111.5 million viewers, but it certainly didn't translate to bar attendance. Not one single bar I visited was packed with a line at the door. You could walk right in anywhere.
2. Only 1 bar had a cover charge ($100. Keep reading!).
3. Every bar visit was unannounced. At some I was recognized; at others, not.
4. Every bar was friendly with the exception of 1 (Woody's Wharf. See Part 1).
5. No drunk customers assaulted me except at 1 bar (a 70 year old drunk English dude. Keep reading!).
6. I tried not to spend more than 5-10 minutes per bar visit. What made the stays longer were my time consuming social media posts at each stop on my Facebook Page (@Jim Poorman Trenton), Twitter (@Poorman1), and taking Pics. That doubled, and sometimes tripled the time!
OK, let's get going. I believe the Super Bowl had just begun, and I was hitting Bar 14…
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Bar 14 Cassidy's Bar And Grill Newport Blvd., Newport Beach 3:26 PM Start Of Game Cassidy's AKA 'Catch A Disease' is a legendary dive bar in Newport Beach. I have been there many, many times! No snobby attitude. it's always no frills. Same situation on Super Sunday. They had a small crowd chill in' at the bar, and watching the game on just a couple TVs. No drink specials, no Super Bowl extras. Nothing special. “Hey, we're Cassidy's, take it or leave it'. The most remarkable thing going on was seeing Russell Wilson sitting at that bar! Wasn't he supposed to be in New Jersey at Met Life Stadium? Anyhow, I'm sure Cassidy's got “busy” after the game. It's a great late night hook up destination on any occasion!
3:33 PM Met some friends on the way to Bar 15
Bar 15
Bar 16 Newport Beach Brewing Company Newport Blvd., Newport Beach 4:04 PM Aww, the Brew Co! This was a Raging Party! Big Crowd, Lots Of Food, Drinks, Microbrew Beers, and 26 TVs. The Brew Co. is a great place to watch a Super Bowl. At this point, the score was Seahawks 5, Broncos zip. The route was just beginning.
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Bar 17 Malarky's Irish Pub Newport Blvd., Newport Beach 4:13 PM Katie the bartender is pouring quite a few Irish Coffees! She looks great, but where was the rowdy crowd? Actually, I expected Malarky's to be packed with a line of college students out the door. Usually, the place is going off, but on Super Sunday, it was less than half full and no college crowd to be found. If I'd had more time, a delicious Irish Coffee or three would have had me seeing triple the crowd. Malarky's did have the biggest TV of any bar, a 110 inch jumbo screen. As I left, the score: Seahawks 8, Broncos zip.
Bar 18 Rudy's Pub And Grill Newport Blvd., Newport Beach 4:27 PM Rudy's was pumping! This was a Raging Super Bowl Party with a 20s crowd with Raging Hormones! Lots of TVs! Good Eats! Plenty of Drinks! Lots of Hot Newport Beach Honeys! In addition, I like how Rudy's has remodeled it's building with huge windows featuring lots of natural bright lighting. It really enhances the party atmosphere. This was definitely a spot you would want to stay a while. Seahawks up 15 zip, but the crowd was much more focused on a totally different kind of “game”. That's it for the Newport Super Bowl Bar Scene. Next up, Surf City USA , Huntington Beach!
Bar 19 G's Boat House Main Street, Huntington Beach 5:07 PM My bar hop had now moved to the Huntington Beach Pier area. This was the 1st bar I visited with a cover charge. Ready for this…a $100 Cover Charge!!!!!! You received unlimited food and drink. But there's much, much more, and that was what I liked, and made this Super Bowl Bar unique. Not sure it was legal, but your $100 was placed into a pool, and you received 1 square with corresponding game scores on a giant board. At the end of each quarter of the Super Bowl, whomever's square matched the Super Bowl score won the pot! The cash grew as the game progressed. The final score square winner took home the big payday! I don't want to get G's in trouble for an illegal HB gambling party, but I'm sorry, I like it! There were even surf celebrity legends in attendance (In Pic from left to right Myself, Surfing's 1st World Champion Peter Townend in the pink shoes, Hawaiian surfing superstar David Nuuhiwa, and OC golf reporter Wil Barnes). The bar at first would not let me inside, but PT and David are friends of mine and eventually the owner invited me in to eat and drink for freeeeeee! Like a true journalistic professional (or stupid idiot), I declined knowing that I needed to move on to Bar 20.
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Bar 20 Gallagher's Pub And Grill PCH, Huntington Beach 5:23 PM Super Bowl Halftime Going Irish once again on Super Bowl Sunday (Malarky's was First). I really enjoyed talking to these two babes in the Pic (ruined by douche bag in the background)! Very friendly. Their Super Bowl drink of choice was Jameson and Ginger ale. They needed quite a few to dull the pain, as their team Denver was getting blown out already 22 to nada! I spent several minutes trying to take a Pic off Gallagher's Big Screen of Anthony of the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing at Halftime. I've know the Chili Peppers since they were broke, and we were the only station in America playing them on KROQ as a jock's choice back in the day. Well now, they were performing to a TV audience of 111.5 million, and I was moving on to Bar 21.
Bar 21 2nd Floor Main Street, Huntington Beach 5:38 PM The Seattle Seahawks are absolutely dominating the Denver Broncos in the 3rd Quarter 29 to 0. A Super Blowout! This is a very different kind of bar that you actually have to walk up two flights of steps to get to, thus the name 2nd Floor. It has an outdoor patio that overlooks HB Main Street. Very Funky, Artsy, and good food. This babe in the Pic was one of the true highlights of my entire bar hop. She was obviously a happy Seahawks fan, and completely F#%KED UP! I first saw her as she was passionately deep tongue kissing some dude she had just met for more than 2 minutes. Then she posed for this epic Pic! Immediately after that, the object of her affection, for whatever reason, focused on me. She wanted to 'stick tongue in Poorman mouth'. As cute as she was, no sloppy seconds, even for the Poordesperado!
While walking to Bar 22, I snapped this Pic showing Sunset descending upon Main Street, the HB Pier, and the Denver Broncos season. What's quite remarkable are the number of empty parking spaces on a street that had at least 20 bars open for business during the Super Bowl. As I mentioned earlier, most of the bars all day long weren't even close to being packed. There wasn't a line to get in anywhere. If any of you have theories as to why this was the case, please post them in the comments section.
Bar 22 Perqs Main Street, Huntington Beach 5:55 PM Perqs is a legendary Main Street HB locals bar. They offered something on Super Sunday that no other bar had: a free Super Bowl Food Spread (See Pic). This was a pure perk from Perqs with no cover charge and no drink minimum. Basically, you could wander in off the street and help yourself. In addition, they featured a raffle that included a Beach Cruiser that you see (the girl is not being raffled). I would have to say this bar was the closest thing to a home environment. In the meantime, the Seahawks continued to dominate as the 3rd quarter was winding up!
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Bar 23 BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse Main Street, Huntington Beach 6:11 PM Start of 4th Quarter. The score: Seahawks 36 Broncos 8. A complete blowout! Ouch! If you were a Broncos fan, this was a miserable day as you can see by the look on the dude's face wearing the Elway number 7 jersey. He was not a happy camper! Not even a great BJ's Pizza in the center of his table could cheer him up! The other diners looked like they were ready for nap time. Personally speaking, I spent about half an hour at BJ's charging my phone. While waiting, I had my second drink of the day/night, one of their microbrews. Very tasty! Endurance was becoming a critical factor 6 hours into this bar hop, and I hadn't even reached the half way point! Onward to Bar 24.
Bar 24 Hurricanes Bar & Grill Main Street Huntington Beach 6:39 PM Hurricanes is one of the most popular bars in Downtown Huntington Beach. Given it's location, that'a truly amazing. It's on the second floor of the same building as BJ's with both a narrow interior and outdoor deck. To get to the bar, you have to find the hidden stairs, and the stairway itself is ugly metallic; it's what you'd expect to see in a maintenance stairwell at a 50 year old high school. But that didn't matter. Hurricanes was packed with a 20s and 30s something crowd. It was a rip roaring, rowdy HB Super Bowl Party! The bar was going off!!! The game blended right in with this fun loving, hard partying crowd. There were only 6 minutes left, and loud music had replaced the Big Game commentary since the score was so lopsided in favor of the Seahawks. You could tell this bash would be continuing way into the night. I would have liked to stay and throw back a few, but it was on to Bar 25.
Bar 25 Killarney Pub & Grill Main Street Huntington Beach 6:51 PM My only memory of Killarney is this Poordude paying the bill after his team took a good whooping. This Pic says it all. Not a good day to be a Bronco's fan (or a Denver Bronco for that matter). I'm not trying to knock Broncos fans, but it seemed evident all day long they had a pretty simple fashion statement. It was one of two things, either a Peyton Manning number 18 jersey or a John Elway number 7 jersey. That was it. Since then, I don't think I've seen either jersey anywhere.
Bar 26 Baja Sharkeez Main Street Huntington Beach 7 PM The Seahawks win the Super Bowl 43-8!!!!! Sharkeez is really fun, people are super friendly, and the place is packed! We are once again introduced to the Beer Tower (In Pic. See American Junkie, Bar 13). The Baja Sharkeez Tower is also 100 ounces, but is a better deal at only $20 than the Junkie Tower at $25. HB versus Newport I guess! It's not surprising that Sharkeez had a great party going on. This legendary So Cal bar with locations up and down the coast usually does! The place seemed to be gathering momentum for plenty of post game celebration!
Bar 27 The Longboard Restaurant and Pub Main Street, Huntington Beach 7:11 PM The game had just completed, and it seemed there was more action going on outside this bar rather than inside. Things did not look promising for a big post game party. There was a lot of complaining going on here between the Manning twins (in Pic.) Apparently, they were arguing about a big bet they had lost! I'm “betting” that their jerseys came off within the next hour and a half. Other than that, not much to report about The Longboard. On to Bar 28, where little did I know, my Bar Hopping Day/Night would soon come to a bittersweet ending…
Bar 28 My Final Destination…Dos Toros Mexican Grill Main Street Huntington Beach 7:34 PM This was a nice, new, and modern looking bar on the Main Street strip. There was a bit of an after party going on with some of the employees. I needed to charge my phone again, and the folks at Dos Toros couldn't have been more accommodating. Since I had some time to spend there while charging, I decided to have my third drink of the Day/Night, a Stella. While sipping that, I struck up a conversation with these lovely ladies who worked at the bar… especially the blonde girl (See 1st Pic. with the ladies and me in the straw hat).
The next thing you know, she bought us all a round of shots. All of a sudden, I was talking to her for an hour. It was 8:30 PM, and I made the critical decision to abandon my attempt at any further bar visits. I know I missed my Super Bowl 48 goal of hitting 48 bars by 21, but it was for a good cause, trust me. Not only was I a bit tired, but now I was slightly “distracted”(See second Pic). Don't want to get into it any more than that LOL!!!!! If you want more details, you'll have to pay me…big $$$!!!!! Dos Toros provided a perfect nightcap for my 9 hour Super Bowl Bar Hop! Who knows if we'll do it again next year, but all in all, it was a great time!
To Contact me, Poorman, about covering a story, a great deal, shooting the shit, whatever…hit me up by phone or text at 949 870 6155, email po******@ao*.com, Facebook @Jim Poorman Trenton, or Twitter @Poorman1. Hope to hear from a lot of you!
When Poorman doesn’t have his feet in the sand, you can find him on the air Monday-Friday 7am-10am at KOCI hosting Poorman’s Morning Rush – Orange County’s only morning drive show. His show brings plenty of excitement, and of course, the Poorman’s aura of unpredictability – both good and bad – that has defined his legend! Email Jim “Poorman” Trenton at [email protected] to request a song or submit music.