Las Margaritas Uptown

I typically pack a just-in-case deck of cards as a preventive measure when I’m trying out a new bar or restaurant — just in case the service is slow, or just in case the music/crowd/vibe sucks but we’re in no hurry to go home. Tonight, however, I pack my blue Bicycle rider-back deck because I’m itching to play some euchre. A trick-taking trump game, euchre requires four players and four players only. So when Mags wakes up from a late-afternoon nap with a hankering for tequila and con queso, we call Darren and Jessica and make plans to play cards on the patio of Las Margaritas Uptown (1035 East 17th Avenue).

Unfortunately, we don’t make it there until 7 p.m. — thirty minutes too late for the early, half-price happy hour. This means that we’ll be camping out for the long haul and waiting for the 10 p.m.-to-1 a.m. two-for-one specials to start — which, in my mind at least, was the plan all along. Chips and three types of salsa arrive while we’re poring over the list of fifty-plus tequilas, fourteen margaritas and various other booze options. Drinks arrive and disappear quickly in the early-evening sun; platters of enchiladas and burritos as big as our heads come and go in a flash. All the while, tables on the front patio (there’s another facing Downing) keep filling and clearing. We’re the only group with our anchor down, and that’s fine by us.

Sometime between 9 and 9:30 p.m., we move all the water, salsas, condiments and such to the ground and begin to shuffle and deal. Euchre is mostly a Midwestern craze, and D and J don’t know the rules, so we spend what little time remains between us and late-night happy hour providing them with explanations and face-up practice hands. Then we go nuts, ordering Tecate drafts and house margaritas and swapping with one another so we can all hold cold beers in one hand and margs in the other. As our blood-alcohol levels rise, the three of us who smoke start wishing we could just light up where we’re sitting instead of having to leave the patio (thus delaying the game). The first time we ask our server nicely, she apologizes and declines, pointing to the lone table of eaters a few feet away. The second time we inquire (almost thirty minutes later), she says okay but seems conflicted about the ashy mess we’ll leave all over the ground. Not wanting to be those guys who take advantage of the meek or outstay their welcome, we continue to trick and trump and slurp sans cigarettes. But before we can even finish a hand, our server returns with a water-filled fishbowl she found somewhere in the back and asks if it will suffice as an ashtray. “Hell, yes!” we exclaim, thrilled beyond bliss.

So we trick and trump and sip and smoke and watch as some drama involving two sisters and a misbehaving boyfriend unfolds by the front door. We speculate about whether the two dudes in near-identical cutoff T-shirts, jean shorts, goatees and baseball caps a table away are brothers or lovers. We find ourselves in a 10-10, win-by-two overtime battle that persists through two rounds of double-fisting and multiple cigarettes. At a quarter to one, with the skirmish still unresolved, our waitress appears to warn us of last call. We’re tired and drunk and a little bit sick of euchre at this point, but more than anything, we’re stubborn. So we order another round of two drinks apiece.

Just in case.