Sneak (microreview)

It's open already. Has been for more than half a year. So the review itself is not sneaky, but the place is a little bit. The sign, with it's single martini glass reminiscent of Swig down the street, suggests an upscale place (disregarding the cartoon of the man on the same sign, all nose, peering over the top of the bar name) as do the rather swanky velvet curtains in the window. Perhaps it's also because it used to be a trendy (not trendy enough, obviously) little glass store and I'm just projecting or remembering or something else psychologically elusive. Still I was surprised to find the dive-like atmosphere when I walked in with my brother last Saturday afternoon. It was early and smelled like stale cigarettes (a smell I'm actually partial to, though a smoky bar is grounds for a quick walk-out -- go figure). The cheap-looking, but fairly varied, bottles of booze behind the counter stood out immediately in the dark room and both the gloom and the booze added to the ambiance.

Small, dingy, filled mostly with a strangely shaped bar that wraps around a column -- intriguing. One pool table if that's what you like, sat in a small mostly open room spitting distance from the bar itself. When we saw that they had something like Bud Light and ZiegenBock on tap, we turned tail, but not before the attentive bartender, a slim young lady, walked over. We asked after the bottle variety of the frothy muse. The usual. So: a couple of Modelos later we were out on the unassuming patio, which, despite it being right in front of the place, had avoided my notice (I'm either losing any perception I once had or the sign and curtains stole the show): a couple of metal tables and benches fenced in catty-corner to the Buckhorn.

The patio afforded an interesting place to relax as a mixture of people walk up and down Presa. Not nearly as many people as St. Mary's or Alamo, but all kinds: tourists (some who come up off the river at Mad Dog's), river rats, and general San Antonionians (its got a ring to it: say it out loud). Between the two of us, John and I saw five people we knew to varying degrees within the hour we were there. A group of (probably) military guys, young and buzzing, asked us where the closest liquor store was (there's two -- Houston and Losoya & Commerce and Presa) and we chatted with a guy we know at the bar as we settled up. Good friendly fun. Definitely worth a peek.

More information: An article from the Express-News and one from their downtown blog (though I wouldn't call it the next Davenport).

Esquire 2011

--Glance (October 2010?)

Sad news about El Tenampa

This was a fantastic, iconic San Antonio bar. Sadly it will be closing its doors, according to this Express-News article, on March 21st. I've been in a few times and was lucky enough to get to review the place. The owners brimmed with that old San Antonio friendliness and the atmosphere, dark and brooding, was always such a cool place to come in from out of the heat.

Fiesta will be a little less enjoyable this year.

The Esquire

The Esquire adorned San Antonio like a pair of jeans. It was the only real bar on the river (one that the tourists would miss unless they were paying attention and interested enough in shady places). It also boasted the longest bar in Texas, making it, according to a September 28, 2006 Express-News article ("Last Call for the Esquire Tavern"), into Ripley's Believe It or Not (we'll believe it) for being able to hold 5,973 Lone Star longnecks on it's wooden surface. That is a hell of a lot of longnecks. And you know that they were gone by the morning -- or at least their contents were. Sadly, the bar dating back to 1933 closed their doors (ostensibly for renovations -- it's been three years) on the day before the article ran -- a Wednesday of all days (not that it mattered a whole lot there though: People flocked to it like kids to an ice cream truck). A couple of other tidbits from that same article:

• "If they get rid of the wallpaper, I'm moving out of town," Chuck Ramirez, San Antonio native and visual artist, said dramatically. Indeed, the gaudy wallpaper is as much a fixture as is the famous 12-by-5-foot Mahncke Hotel painting fished out of the San Antonio River during the Great Flood of 1921 that hangs proudly above the jukebox.
  
• The Esquire will be closed for at least 18 months for a $1.8 million renovation, which will more than double the square footage and includes gutting the space, remodeling and adding a restaurant downstairs. Plans are to return as a family friendly destination, renamed Tavern Esquire and BBQ House.
  

I remember when I first moved down here in 1999, I got all dressed up (read: slacks and a tucked in button down shirt) for a job interview. It didn't go very well. I don't even remember what the job was or where downtown, but I do remember drowning my sorrows at the Esquire. I stood at the bar with the vaqueros and pioneers and the drunks and had a shot of well tequila and a 16 oz lone star. It just barely broke the two dollar mark, if I remember correctly. I tipped and laid down the change from my twenty and drank until it was gone. Alas, those days are gone (as are the ones of my brother puking under the table years later from the same said tequila while someone distracted the waiter). I never bought a shirt that read, "You got frisked at The Esquire" because I never thought I wouldn't be able to buy one.

Most recently (January 10, 2009), an Express-News article ("Group Backs Plan to Raze Annex") had this to say: "Also Friday, the [Historic and Design Review C]ommission approved conceptual renovation plans for the Esquire Tavern, which dates to 1933 and has long been known as a popular watering hole by the River Walk. Davis Sprinkle, project architect, said the tavern at 151 E. Commerce St. and its features, including its exterior tile and neon sign and elongated wooden bar, would be kept intact but made to look as good as new." As far as I can tell Davis Sprinkle is a part of the Sprinkle Robey Architecture firm, though there is no mention of the project on the website.

I have a bad feeling that the Esquire is kaput for the foreseeable future.