Each week City of Ate will give you the lowdown on a local happy hour in Quittin' Time, with the details on why you should or shouldn't take up the featured bar or restaurant on its drink specials.
Where:
The Loon, 3531 McKinney Ave. (at the corner of McKinney and Lemmon), 214- 559-3059
When: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day
What: Varies from
25 cents to $1.00 off liquor.
Why: The drinks aren't especially cheap, even after a happy hour discount, but you won't be needing too many of them. And the pork sandwich is awesome.
The sight of a bar without a single customer drinking beer was somewhat surprising at first--until our glass of Jameson Irish Whiskey arrived. It would easily be a double in most bars, possibly even a triple. The generosity that earned the place a Best of Dallas Award for Best Pour in 2004 is clearly still in place.
But even a stiff drink isn't reason enough to make just any old bar a destination. Fortunately, The Loon's clean, homey feel, completely unpretentious clientele and great food make it all the more rewarding a happy hour destination.
The menu ranges from a $23.95 filet mignon to several sandwiches and other bar-food staples for well under $10 apiece. The pork sandwich, described on the menu as a "Midwestern favorite," proved an exceedingly wise choice for $7.95. It consisted of a large pork cutlet pounded flat, breaded and fried and served hamburger-style on a sesame-seed bun with mustard, mayo and fixings, plus excellent house-made potato chips.
Just as diverse as the menu is the crowd. During a weekday afternoon visit, it consisted almost entirely of 60-something men, with a scattering of younger folks of all persuasions--black, white, hipster and squared-away. According to our server--a very sweet, slightly flirtatious young woman working with a bleached, faux-hawked female bartender--the crowd gets younger later in the evening, attracting mostly SMU kids and professionals on weekends and service-industry types early in the week.
That was a bit of a surprise; the well-worn, no-frills dive atmosphere with minimal decorations, dim lighting and distressed old hardwood booths doesn't seem like the place that would attract yuppies and SMU students. Guess they're willing to slum it for such enormous drinks. And those same drinks would make it a hell of a lot more tolerable to spend an evening with them.
