Finding A Rat Pack Restaurant

Every once in awhile I come across a place that reminds me of 'days-gone-by' and they cause me to lament what we have lost as a society.

This time it was a restaurant and cigar bar hidden away just off a main street nestled neatly in the middle of the 1960s. I'd tell you where it is, but... NO. That would be like finding THE perfect deserted beach then telling everyone where it is. The next thing you know there'd be a resort planted on it with thousands of people trouncing MY sand and I'd have to go on a quest to find the new perfect deserted beach. And there just aren't that many of them left!! Well, this cigar bar and restaurant are the same way... there just aren't that many of them left… so, NO.

A good friend of mine deemed me WORTHY of sharing this secret Mecca and to whom I will be forever grateful. As soon as I walked in I saw men at the bar smoking quality cigars and I knew I was in the 'right place.' I had to pinch myself to see if I was still alive. Had I gotten run over by a bus on the way here and now I was dead?? This HAD to be Heaven. There were men smoking cigars in the bar!!! I thought there was nowhere left in the country where people could do THAT!!

My next reaction was to get in quick and lock the doors before the 'Smoking Gestapo' found out that we were smoking cigars in there!!! People smoking cigars in an enclosed area within a city limit!! What were we thinking?! What am I thinking? You can't even smoke in the great outdoors nowadays, why would I think we could smoke ANYWHERE and not have 'Brown Shirts' breaking down the doors? Yet, everyone inside seemed unexcited by a new entrant to their secret society and totally unconcerned that they’d be discovered, so it must happen all the time.

Once we got settled in and ordered a couple martinis – which turned out to be HUGE and GOOD compared to what you get at most bars – I was able to take it all in. The place looked like a throwback to 'Rat Pack' days. I LOVED it! I expected Dean, Frank, Sammy, Peter and Joey to come in the door any second, sidle up to the bar and start talking to the ‘broads.’ Perfection… And food to match. Low on foo-foo, high on steaks and lobster.

But as I looked around another ton of bricks landed on me. We’re losing these little ‘finds’ every damned day. Just a week earlier I was in a couple other restaurant-bars and the difference was… stark. First of all, cigars were absolutely FORBIDDEN even on the outside patio. They were glitzy, plastic and contrived – right down to the miniscule uniforms the girls wore. They were right out of some magazine – one of those ‘corporate cookie cutter’ magazines that shows us where we ‘should be’ dining as per some NYC office dweller. BS… I love the character that goes with the neighborhood place and the guys smoking cigars at the bar. It’s the REAL ‘authentic’ the other places are TRYING to capture and missing entirely.

Speaking of the ‘Rat Pack…’ brought to mind another thought. Las Vegas is a perfect example of what we’ve lost as Americana and the American Experience. The boys of the Rat Pack would barely recognize what’s there now. Back in THEIR day Vegas had character. It was grittier, bolder, wilder, more about gambling, drinking and sex and less about trying to be the Nevada Disneyland. Granted, there’s more money to be made from the ‘corporate’ angle, but look at what we’ve traded away.

We’re losing character in excahnge for our bottom lines – we’re trading away our souls to fill our pockets with gold. Is there such a thing as a happy medium? Can we save our character without destroying who we are?

Doubtful… Not any more…