Drinking Games
Nightlife in our fair city—where one must often times pay for the privilege of obtaining a seat inside a club—can feel pretty bullshitty. Which is why we were elated upon hearing that Goal, a new sports bar, opened on Third Street.
Where we come from, sports bars are the best; they usually attract normal patrons who just want to have a good time. Plus, where else can you start drinking at 10 a.m., do shots with complete strangers to the tune of Journey and wear a $10 T-shirt without feeling like a slob? Nowhere, that’s where.
Unfortunately you’re not going to want to do those things at Goal, either. But this is the first establishment we’ve seen in a very long time that strikes a good balance between the low-key feeling of Chicago’s Wrigleyville (yes, home of the Cubs) with the upscale polish Angelenos crave.
And that formula equals something overwhelmingly normal in every way—a nightlife trait that we have personally, with little success, been trying to find for years. We know where we’ll be spending this baseball season. Here’s why.
The Buzz: You may remember this as Food Court, the short lived, sometimes-on-The Hills restaurant just East of Joan's on Third. And though the space was designed by Spacecraft's Kris Keith and is owned by Villa's Chuck Pacheco, Goal hasn't yet gotten a ton of talk. Neighborhood dwellers seem to just be discovering this new game-night spot, which in addition to drinks also serves a cafe menu of salads, hot dogs, burgers, nachos, wings and steak until 11 p.m.
The Scene: The Thursday night we stopped by, there were no important games on TV. Yet the place was still fairly crowded with clean-cut young professionals, thirty-something dudes who walked over from home and ladies in their early twenties who obviously came to score some cute sports fans. And the cute sports fans were there, all right—they just happened to be with their girlfriends. At one booth, three couples played drinking games and reminded us of a scene from How I Met Your Mother. At another, three boys in their late teens played cards and scarfed burgers. Other patrons socialized with the very friendly bartenders and wait staff. And because the fantastic mostly-classic rock soundtrack (Clapton, Stones, Styx) is at a normal volume, socializing is quite easy to do here. No ‘tude, no namedroppers and, well, no L.A. Goal is the most normal scene we’ve experienced in a really long time. Hopefully it will stay that way and not be overrun by former frat boys desperately trying to relive their glory days.