A charming hideout: The Union
By Eric Mungenast, Staff Writer
October 4, 2007 | 2:36 p.m.
Thursday night was a warm albeit wet evening filled with the potential for revelry and drunkenness. Thursday was the perfect evening for my friend "Matt" (real name omitted) and I to visit The Union Bar and Grill to check out its atmosphere.
We got incredibly lucky, avoiding the rain that had swept through Athens earlier that night. The bar acted as a refuge from the inclement weather. We started at 7 p.m., a little early for most people to start drinking, but the time coincided with happy hour, and was still before The Ataris began its set in the upstairs section of the bar.
Therefore, The Union was practically empty, with a small group of people at the bar. The patrons looked to be alternative or underground, with dark hair, dark shirts and dark glasses frames. They sat at the bar and chatted with the lone bartender, a lanky man in his fifties with balding hair and a constant smile on his face.
My friend Matt is technically underage, although this did not prove to be an issue for him. Most bars do not check IDs at the door until much later in the evening, which allowed Matt to walk in without a problem. We squeezed into a booth toward the back of the bar, about 10 feet away from the pool tables, where a couple of guys were engrossed in the middle of their match.
Matt walked up to the bartender and ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, only $2.50 thanks to happy hour. The bartender never asked Matt for his ID and promptly made the drink. On the other hand, the bartender did decide to card me, causing Matt to choke on his Long Island out of laughter. He continued to laugh at me as I brought the drink back to the booth, cheerfully reminding me that I do not look like a 22-year-old.
The Long Island Iced Tea tasted fine, but had a little too much lemon juice in it, which usually means the bartender skimped on the alcohol. Matt and I tried to talk, but found ourselves yelling over the music, which began as contemporary alternative rock but came to include older songs, for example "Polythene Pam" by the Beatles and Carl Perkins' version of "Blue Suede Shoes."
After finishing my drink, I decided to check out the bathroom, which can be one of the more interesting features of any bar. Unfortunately, the smell of urine hit me like a tidal wave, the pungent odor both inescapable and unrelenting. I looked at the toilet and saw the urine-drenched toilet seat. The floor, somehow, looked even worse.
The graffiti on the wall was a highlight; the little R2-D2 drawing forced me to laugh a little. Quotes like "Real art is feeling," "We March sucked Tonite" and "Mr. Woot-Woot" adorned the walls, which created appropriate bathroom literature. Too bad the sink would not turn off. I finished my bathroom excursion and ordered my second drink, a Southern Comfort Manhattan, which led to this exchange:
"Sorry, my brain just died. What's in a Manhattan again?" the bartender asked.
"I can't remember," I replied. "I know cherries are in it."
"It's usually whiskey instead of SoCo."
"I know," I replied. "It goes down a little easier without the whiskey."
"Hold on, let me take a look," he said before looking at a bar-tending guide.
He made my Manhattan in a cocktail glass instead of the customary old-fashioned glass, but he was nice enough to let me try it before charging me. The Manhattan had a little too much cherry flavoring, but was good for the price -- just $2.50.
Matt ordered another Long Island, and we left after our second drink at 7:45 p.m. However, we decided to go back to the bar at 10 p.m. to catch the crowd at a peak time. The door attendant carded Matt this time, putting two little crosses on his hands with a marker. The crosses came off after two minutes of sweating.
The place was much busier than earlier. The music from the upstairs section nearly drowned out all the excitement on the bottom floor, as a group of about fifteen celebrated a birthday. Silver birthday hats adorned the members of the party, who periodically popped balloons that sounded like mortar fire and broke into fits of yelling and revelry. One such moment ended with the "Anchorman" quote, "I don't know what we're yelling about."
The crowd as a whole appeared more eclectic than the one earlier, as collared shirts appeared on some in the crowd. The poor bartender, this time a college-aged man, looked overwhelmed with the business, unable to hand the number of customers. Help for the overworked bartender did not arrive until much later.
All the noise led to an inability to converse. I could not hear what Matt had to say, even though he was only across the booth from me. The darkly lit bar did little to help the situation. I felt as if I were wanted by the police and found the filthiest place I could to hide out from them, which was fun.
I had to wait awhile to get my last drink, a Kamikaze, which came in a large shot glass and was still $2.50. Again, the shot contained a lot of lemon, but went down easily despite the tartness. Matt and I tried to talk a little while after that, but found ourselves incapable of hearing one another, so we left a little before 11 p.m.
Overall, The Union is a smelly, dirty, loud, cramped and somewhat creepy place to grab a drink. Nevertheless, the bar has a certain charm to it because it embraces this dirty image. The appeal of the bar is the ideal of a good drink for a low price, coupled with an interesting, although ugly, atmosphere. It is a lovely place to hang out on a Thursday night
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