by the eu professional drinkers
In spite of Mandarin being the historical home to the famous Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I never thought of it as particularly progressive. It has an often overlooked history that dates back to the very foundations of Jacksonville. Jacksonville’s founder, Isaiah Hart, called it home for most of his life here. Well things have sure changed around there.
Location: San Jose Blvd across from Target (just moved).
Type of Place: Neighborhood bar.
Serving: Full bar with domestic and imported beers, house wines, full liquor (cheap and stiff well drinks) and some bar foods. Atmosphere: Awkward, because everyone else seems pretty regular, but plenty friendly. Their newly renovated digs are fresh and their bathrooms are immaculate.
Amenities: Good jukebox, free “happy Friday” shots. Some great live music, some not-so-great live music. Usually cover bands, but they aren’t too intrusive. There are lots of pool tables, some high tables and some darker low tables on the opposite side.
Drink specials: They won’t tell us. Too drunk?
The girls are easy and so am I. What I am doing here is still the question on my mind. Regulars run the place, when do I become a regular? But you still feel welcome. The phrase at “Spank My Monkey’s Uncle” is “What are you doing here?” I’m still not sure what that means. I like this place. This is the place to be now that it’s reopened. The bartenders remember who you are and they make you feel like regulars. The real regulars don’t mess with you too much. I’ve lost my shit on some Emerson. (Please note: Russel is not usually a writer, but no one else could focus on the keyboard enough to hit the right keys. Good looking out, Russell, you saved the pub crawl!) – Russel Gill (et al.)
Location: 10550 St. Augustine Road at the corner of Hood Road
Type of Place: Pool hall and beer bar
Serving: Imported and domestic draft beers, a selection of wines and a variety of bottled beers.Atmosphere: This newly renovated bar is a little bright, but it’s cheap during happy hour and it’s stuffed with working class stiffs.
Amenities: pool tables, a satellite juke box, Golden Tee, some tabletop video games, an ATM and New York pizza next door that will bring your pie to you at the bar. That may stop when their food menu is introduced soon.
Drink Specials: Happy hour is weekdays until 7 pm, cheap domestics ($1.75) and half pitchers. They also sell pitchers of Guiness for $9!
Their renovations are so fresh that the smell of varnish from their glossy blond wood bar fills the place. The Blue Anchor avoids that surly bar standard and surprises visitors that judge it by the diminutive strip mall entrance. With big, flat screen televisions all over the place, you’re sure to see the game you want. The track lighting lights up the bright yellow walls (painted – mod style) dulled by the strip-mall chic of the burgundy ceiling panels. - Johnny St. Thomas
Location: St. Augustine Road between Crown Point and San Jose
Type of Place: Full bar
Serving: Imported and domestic draft beers. Full liquor and every bottled beer you could ask for.Atmosphere: A bar’s bar.
Amenities: Satellite juke box, Golden Tee and bowling, pool tables and smoking allowed.
Drink Specials: Water costs a lot of attitude.
I have always hated O’Malley’s. Monday nights are apparently especially lame in Mandarin. I’m also having a hard time seeing straight, so their drinks are fairly stiff, or I came too prepared to be drunk in O’Malley’s again. Every time I come here I get the same bitchy bartender. Her name is Barb. I asked her for a water, to stop the place from spinning, and she laughed and walked away from me. Leaving me there. Spinning. Designated drivers must be a huge hit here. Where’d we put our designated driver? This is the place to watch out for drunk frat boys that like to start fights with drunk smart asses. Hey wait, I’m a drunk smart ass. I better get going. Taxi! –Johnny St. Thomas
It never even dawned on me that our professional drinkers have not reviewed a single bar in this expansive neighborhood. But my old friend and long time drinking partner, Russel, pointed this fact out to me in no minced words. So I called him out. But I don’t know how to navigate this world of strip-mall bars and whenever I try I end up drunk, fighting with frat boys or rednecks, and far from home. So I insisted that Russel and another of his drinking buddies, Ryan Couper, take me along their trail of watering holes. “Ryan Couper,” known by most as Joe Foster, passed away less than a month after. We were only just getting to know Joe when he brought EU into these bars with him. These words he’s left us are a strange and misfit sort of obituary for such a magnanimous personality. Drinking in Mandarin won’t be the same without the late Ryan Couper, but we managed to end up drunk, fighting with frat boys and rednecks, and far from home. I guess you just can’t take me anywhere. Ryan might be proud.
Location: St. Augustine Road at the corner of Hood Road in the Food Lion complex.
Type of Place: Bar and grill.
Serving: Full liquor, imported and domestic draft and bottled beers.Atmosphere: Classic bar with a live music stage. Tonight (Monday) is karaoke night.
Amenities: Live music, tabletop video games, pool tables, a digital jukebox and smoking allowed.
Drink Specials: Rotating daily specials.
I wish we had not come here. The banal conversations encroaching upon my auditory capacities are so reproachable as to force any man to self-extermination. I really love whiskey-tanned bitches singing Evanescence; reminiscent of all that was intolerable in grade school. Bravo. (Wait. Are they karaoke-ing Drowning Pool? Russel is lip syncing a roar right now. Their giant mugs of beer make me feel funny.) -Ryan Couper (et al)
Location: On San Jose, across the street from Tijuana Flats by Crown Point Road
Type of Place: Cozy Hole in the Wall
Serving: Economy Sized BeersAtmosphere: Earthy Shoeless Atmosphere. (Shoes required.)
Amenities: Bathrooms and pool tables
Drink Specials: $1.50 Drafts
The prevalence of ignorant hypocritical religious tendencies renews one’s faith in American democracy. Coloreds allowed. [Although I’m not entirely certain what Ryan means by all of that, there is definitely a working class vibe in this place. I’m not sure how it came by the name “Viva Burrito,” but I didn’t see anyone A) ethnic, or B) eating anything. But it was certainly alive with ball caps and mullets!] -Ryan Couper (et al.)
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