Each week City of Ate will give you the lowdown on a local happy hour
in Quittin' Time, with the details and why you should or shouldn't take
up the featured bar or restaurant on its drink specials.
Where: The Elbow Room, 3010 Gaston Ave., 214-828-9488
When: 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Friday
What: $1.25 Pabst Blue Ribbons, $2.50 domestics, $3 premium beers, $3.75 imports, $3 wells.
Why or why not: Happy hour prices aren't going to save you much -- 50 or 75 cents per beer, and a buck or so on wells. Also, it's pretty difficult to find a free parking space even when it's not especially busy, so be prepared to feed the street-side parking meters.
But the good, cheap pizza and friendly neighborhood dive atmosphere make up for the imperfections.
Situated next to Baylor hospital, The Elbow Room offers a pretty extensive menu of bar grub including cheesesteaks, cheeseburgers, chicken parm and Italian sausage sandwiches as well as salads and slightly more upscale items like antipasto plates and calamari. Most popular are the pizzas, and for good reason. Our personal pie ($6, plus $1 apiece for toppings) arrived at mouth-searing temperature just minutes after we ordered it. Coulda been more generous with the toppings, but it was a fine thin-crust nonetheless, and just the right size to satisfy without leaving us comatose. In fact, it would make a perfect pre-match meal for a round of darts, shuffleboard or pool -- all of which are so much more enjoyable on well-worn tables and boards, surrounded by faded, scuffed wood and a clutter of old beer signs than they are in more polished taverns.
Unfortunately, just like our pool game, the service can be hit or miss. Our server on a recent visit neglected
to tell us about the PBR special when we asked about happy hour deals.
Also, after we informed her that she'd given us a leaky pen to sign our
credit card slip, her only concern was whether she'd gotten any ink on
herself -- not even an apology, even though our hand looked like we'd just fingerbanged Smurfette.
