Dive into New Haven's watering holes

• Before you drown your February sorrows in drink, check out the 411 on four of New Haven's hottest spots.

By Stephanie Escajeda, Claire Lundberg, Andrea Lynch, and Emily Raboteau

I am constantly surprised by the situations into which my undying thirst will lead me. On a Sunday afternoon stroll, my appetite drove me towards a destination--any destination provided it served beer in a chilled mug. Leaving caution at the local convenience store to buy a Pepsi, I entered the Old Town Tavern on Orange Street. What beckoned me in, ultimately, was the name: this establishment promised to be rustic New Haven with History sipping whiskey at the bar. Once through the door, however, my eyes caught on to what my brain would not accept: I was the only female present, aside from the raspy-voiced bartender. I also noted that I was not observing the dress code: baseball cap, black jeans, flannel, and moustache. Fearless as usual, I would not be kept from my beer, so I bellied up to the bar and signaled the bartender, ready to order. She approached. "This here is a private party. A friend of ours is gettin' married." "Does this mean I can't get a beer?" I asked. "Well...no." "Newcastle, then."

Her eyes tried to give the warning that her words could not. They said, "You realize you are the meat," but I nodded defiantly in the direction of the tap. She drew my cup and wiped my place clean. On the first sip, I gazed at the semi-fine liquors on the wall. On the second, I straightened my back. On the third, the proposal came. Him: "Hello, there. Are you a dancer?" Me: "I can dance, but I'm not a dancer." Him: "Well, our stripper hasn't shown, and I've got a wad of money burning a hole in my pocket."

The fourth, the fifth, and the final gulps flew fast down my gullet. I paid, I nodded, I smiled, and I left. I never tried out the pool table. I never used the facilities. I never danced the fandango on the laps of eager patrons. So much to do in New Haven, so little time.

Emily Raboteau at G. Reynold's

Jim asks us if we want to go see this Country band play at this Country Western bar in Branford on Saturday night. He knows the guitarist. "And how!" I say. Nicole shrugs her shoulders. Country Western isn't exactly her idea of a good time. But when Saturday rolls around, she's dressed up kind of like a cowgirl chippie long before its time for Jim to pick us up. She has on her made-for-walking boots, a black suede mini-skirt, a button-up shirt with red and white checkers tied off under her breasts, a red kerchief tied around her neck, and her hair in pigtails.

When Jim picks us up to go to the bar, I've got on my cowboy shirt with the snaps and the almost-too-tight-to-do-the-fly blue jeans and Nicole has done my hair in braids with ribbons at the ends. We're both talking like down-home Dolly Parton and wearing make-up like Tammy Faye Bakker and Jim's shaking his head and wishing he hadn't asked us along because everybody at the Country Western bar is probably going to think we're making fun of them.

When we get there, it's almost exactly like what you think a Country Western bar should be, which is surprising. Who would have guessed they've got cowboys in Connecticut? There's this man in black leaning at the bar chewing on a toothpick, looking like either a cross between Death and the Marlboro Man or the bad guy in a Roy Rogers flick, depending on which way you look at him. Either way, you can tell he's tough and would cut you up with a beer bottle if you got him mad. A lot of the men don cowboy hats. One's even wearing a leather vest with fringe. Most of the women have mile-high hair. There's also this lady having a party at one of the tables with balloons and a happy birthday banner and a cake with all these candles like this is Chuck E. Cheese at the O.K. Corral.

We are definitely the youngest people in the place. Everybody else is somewhere between 35 and 60 and all of them seem to be married couples. I have to remind myself I'm 21 and have a right to be there. We sit down at a little table near the dance floor and Nicole and I get Coronas with lime. We push the lime down into the bottle-necks like my big brother taught me when I was a little girl. Before we can suck them dry, Nicole spills half her Corona into the basket of potato chips the tough-cookie waitress brought. I laugh, but Jim doesn't think it's so funny.

The band is playing what must be country standards because it seems like all the people are mouthing the words like they know them by heart as they line-dance up on the dance floor. Line-dancing looks easy, but Nicole and I feel too much like outsiders to try it. Plus the floor is pretty packed. Then the lady singer starts up "Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog." We jump up on the floor before any of the old people get a chance to form a line and we start dancing like we know how. The lady's growling out the words like they're supposed to be sung, not the way Elvis sang them. You can tell she's got fire 'cause her boots are red as flames.

I don't know two-step or square-dancing, but I do know the butterfly, the bankhead, the donkey, and the forbidden belly dance I learned from a fat lady in a Middle Eastern restaurant, so that's what I'm doing. Nicole's next to me spinning in circles and laughing and swinging her arms loose and switching her butt with her eyes closed. We're the only ones on the floor. It's our country. We join hands and throw back our heads and spin 'cause there are no laws. Jim's friend is going crazy on the guitar. We're dancing real hard and dirty and the women have to pick their husbands' jaws up off the ground, 'cause that's where they've dropped. We're turning and churning and Nicole gets so dizzy she trips over to her seat, but I keep on dancing 'cause I'm young and I'm happy. It's life, not liquor, making me move. I'm thinking, if I died now, at least I'd be dancing; if I died now, at least I'd go down laughing. I dance so hard, when I finally stop, those Connecticut cowboys and their wives have to clap.

Claire Lundberg at the Old New Haven Bar

The Old New Haven Bar inhabits that strange area of downtown known as Ninth Square, where condos and junk shops rub elbows. It serves as the most ironic example of the ghost-town renaissance that seems to be occurring in the area across from the Coliseum--partially because it just opened, making it the new Old New Haven Bar. Its name mirrors what downtown as a whole is trying to do--move backwards in time by nostalgically rediscovering the time when New Haven was prosperous, men were men, and beer was beer.

But the Old New Haven Bar is not ironic in name alone. The owner described to me his desire to make it "a neighborhood place"--but how do you create a neighborhood place where there is no neighborhood? This is the challenge for the Old New Haven Bar, and a formidable one it is, considering it was serving a crowd of about four people when my friend and I rolled up to the joint. Again, like downtown itself, it seems all dressed up with no place to go. This is too bad, really--it's a nice place. Kind of like T. G. I. Friday's, without the screaming crowds of drunken investment bankers. Or like Cheers, only there aren't enough people there for anyone to know your name. It's a real old American bar, where you can sip your beer and watch football, in the company of the town's long-tarnished glory. Then try and beat yourself at darts.

Actually, everyone should go . Keep it from being one of those New Haven businesses that closes after two weeks. Do we really need another empty storefront around?

Whoops, I'm getting political. Waiter, could I have another beer?

Julia Tiernan/YH Despite its confident exterior, Gecko remains confused on the inside.

Andrea Lynch at Gecko

Walking into Gecko at 11 p.m. on a Friday night, I get the feeling that it wouldn't be too hard to find someone to go home with after last call. I also get the feeling that Gecko is a bar with an identity crisis. Is it a sports bar? A cigar bar? A cheesy dance club? My mission is to find out.

In the interest of journalism, I hit the dance floor when "No Diggity" comes on. Waify black-clad women are baring their midriffs and gyrating their hips. A sprinkling of couples will need to be surgically removed from each other later in the evening. Circles of kids who look like they just graduated from junior high ring the dance floor. We are doing our best to look eligible, but no one bites. "There must be more Yale people than we thought," my friend shouts over the pumping bass. "None of these guys are hitting on us." Too true. While we're getting another round at the bar, a dapper bachelor in a swank corduroy blazer bums a light off me for his cigar, then disappears.

As the opening cries of "Tubthumping" ricochet across the trendy industrial interior, we feel compelled to join the Great White Wave migrating over to the dance floor. This time, we are not disappointed. Within one chorus, two eligible young gentlemen are jerkily making their way over to us. After a sketchy male/male semaphore barely visible to the naked eye, we break off into couples.

I ask my boy if he comes here often. "It's my first time," he shouts in my ear. Later, he admits that he's been here for the past three or four weekends. "Where are you from?" I ask. "New York," he says. "I love the City," I reply. He chuckles. "Well, I'm not actually from New York. I just tell girls that." Another lie whose purpose remains unclear. It's time for another drink and a graceful exit.

Well, we didn't get lucky, but we sorta got drunk. I guess you can't really ask for much more from a bar. The drinks at Gecko are reasonably priced, the music is predictable but danceable, and of course it's somewhat refreshing to be in a sexually charged atmosphere every once in a while. But the problem with Gecko is that it just doesn't seem to have any soul; it's fresh off the dance club/sports bar/cigar bar assembly line. Call it the XandO of nightspots.

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