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: Chan Thai Club, 312 W. Seventh St.
When: Daily, 4:30 p.m to 7 p.m.
What: $1.75 Miller Lite and $2.75 Blue Moon drafts, $3 house wine, $2.50 well drinks and complimentary appetizers
Why: You know what is an odd experience? Being offered a bartending job before you've finished your first beer -- or even introduced yourself to the rest of the bar.
Chan Thai Club is a relatively new addition to Chan Thai in the Bishop Arts District. Judging by the sparse crowds on two separate happy-hour visits, its tucked-away location in the corner of a parking lot shared with Vitto Italian isn't the easiest to find. But people did start to trickle in around 8 p.m. -- missing the boat on the free food.
The drag queens and shirtless beefcakes pictured on the menu (and
popularity of the extremely sweet frozen coconut- or mango-flavored rum
drinks) certainly indicate its gay-friendly status. But it's also just
people-friendly in general -- the bartender kept the free apps a-coming.
Monday's featured bite was a crispy lemon-pepper chicken snack that was
more tangy than spicy, but she also brought out gratis crispy spring
rolls as well.
Perhaps the cheap alcohol had something to do with the almost overly
friendly atmosphere. Or maybe it's that the few congenial customers
the club had believed
it was their unofficial duty to keep people coming back. If that was
the case, they needn't have bothered -- the free food already ensured
Quittin' Time's imminent return -- tonight, maybe? Seeing as we're
currently making a living in the newspaper industry, we may need to ask
a few more questions about that bartending gig.