This is such a dive bar that there’s a skinny, scrappy dog walking around and you just can’t help but love it–I do mean dive in a very complimentary way. I used to come here all the time, but since the hair incident, not so much. I was here that night with two girlfriends, and we were playing pool and having a little drinkage. The more you drink the better you play, and we had gotten really, really good. After winning a game against two strangers, we went to get a celebratory drink. There were these little votive candles lined up on the bar, and I was wearing my hair down, looking kinda sassy. (Usually I have Roseanne Roseannadanna hair–it takes two hours and a lot of hair products to tame and straighten that wild mass.) So I was making with the Cher hair flip a lot, leaning back against the bar, when my girls started yelling, “Margarita, your hair’s on fire!” Everyone in the bar turned to stare at us as we frantically patted my head down, trying to put it out. (It’s the only time it’s OK for a girlfriend to smack you, by the way.) We quickly got it extinguished, but the aroma of burning hair filled the entire bar and pretty much everyone left–even the dog disappeared.
–Margarita Morales, software programmer