No sooner does the level of my Great Divide Samurai bottle dip below the top of the label than Carol, the bartendress at the shiny-new Jonesy's EatBar (400 East 20th Avenue), asks if I'd like another. It's been less than five minutes since she served it to me. "Oh, I don't drink that fast," I tell her, though I often do. "But from now on I'll face the back of the bottle toward you, and when it gets down to here," I say, pointing to the bottom of the label, "you'll know I'm ready for the next one." I probably would never have come here had this spot stayed the Dish Bistro, I think while sipping my beer, but already I'm a fan of Denver's first gastropub.
Gastro-what? A gastropub, Carol tells me, is a Brit-coined term for a bar that specializes in high-quality food instead of deep-fried fare, as well as a stellar beer and wine selection. The Internets confirm this claim, as do mine own eyes, which spy sixteen types of vino and 37 different brews — 24 of which qualify as Colorado craft — on the spirit list, and a dinner menu that includes the phrases "balsamic reduction sauce," "coconut green curry mussels" and "Brussels sprout confit." I'm not interested in negotiating any culinary jabberwocky, but I am hungry, so I order the Un-Fancy, Down-Home Mac & Cheese. (On my next visit? The ten-dollar sliders with shoestring fries.)
When she returns from putting in my order, Carol finds me staring at the display bottles above the bar and asks what kind of beer I like. "All beer, mostly," I reply, "but especially bocks, stouts and anything unfiltered." She suggests the Avery Ellie's Brown Ale and I bite, even though it's not included in the half-price happy hour (though all domestics, Great Divides and Breckenridge Brewery beers are). As she's fishing the bottle from the back of the fridge, she asks whether I'd like a glass; when I give her a "sure" shrug, she admits a preference for bottles over draft because she's prone to spilling and because she grew up in Kansas drinking "nothing but bottles of Bud." This motif — of telling stories and sharing quirks — more or less defines Carol during my visit, and is one reason my visit lasts so long.
I'm certainly not here for the rest of the company. For the first thirty minutes, I share the bar with a bespectacled man who silently eats a salad and simultaneously drinks two glasses of wine (one red, one white). For the second thirty, I share it with Chris, a guy in a blue-striped button-down with a hip-holstered cell phone. He has a playful disposition — he tells Carol he's "just here to get wasted" when she asks whether he wants to see a menu — but he only stays long enough to drink a Corona and order a shot of Cuervo. I almost tell Carol to make it two, but Chris is biting into his lime and opening his throat before I can act. I watch in amazement. "Lime before tequila, huh?" I inquire curiously.
"Lime before and after," he replies before throwing a few singles on the bar and walking out.
For my third beer and my third half-hour, I choose a still-half-off Breckenridge Vanilla Porter that arrives concurrently with my meal. Seated two chairs away is my final friend of the night. His name is Clint, and we quickly discover while perusing weekend-brunch menus that we share an affinity for Hollandaise sauce. "You had the Benedict at Bump & Grind?" he asks.
"Oh, yeah," I respond. "You had the one at Hot Cakes?" He hasn't, though he promises to check it out.
"Mostly I'm just excited to try these," he says, pointing at the menu in front of him. Me, too.
My fourth and final beer of the night is a five-dollar Boddington's can. As I gastro-glug from the pint glass I've poured it in, I ask Carol about the music — which has run the gamut from Springsteen to Bright Eyes to traditional Irish tunes — and she points to a second-generation silver iPod nano plugged into the house stereo system. "A Dish regular made the playlist for us," she informs me. "It's all over the place, but I like it." When she says this, I think about our conversations — about bars, beers and men being more comfortable with the two-stall unisex bathroom than women. I think about the EatBar menus — about cheap, quality beer meeting fancy French fries and seafood. And I think about the clientele — about the speechless herbivore, the in-and-out shot-taker, the Bump & Grinder.
So when Carol says that the music is all over the place but she likes it, I think about Jonesy's in general.
"Me, too," I say.
