My spouse and I visited Locust Rendezvous (nicknamed “The ‘Vous” twice on a Sunday in late December 2017. The first time we stopped by was for a self-created happy hour in the late afternoon, but we returned in the late evening in order to ring in the new year with our fellow patrons. The bar is open daily from late morning until 2:00 am, which is sometimes a rarity for the area.
Locust Rendezvous opened in fall 1989 on Locus Street Downtown, just down
the block from the Academy of Music and the Doubletree Hotel. (In fact, we were
guests at the Doubletree, looking for a nearby reasonably priced comfortable
place for a drink.) The space previously held a bar called Bananas. Locust
Rendezvous has won several awards including best sports bar, best bar, best
dive bar, best fries, best buffalo wings, and best chili. It has a comfortable
neighborhood bar feel, and prices are relatively low compared to elsewhere in
the city.
The interior is narrow but long. A few small windows at the front allow for
two larger booths/tables below, followed by high-top tables that stretch to the
back of the space. A long bar provides additional seating. Wood-paneled walls, signs,
and paper flyers provide the décor. Dark, loud, electronic juke-box music, and
lots of TVs. Serves bar food, including fries, wings, nachos, burgers,
cheesesteaks, French onion soup, and all-day breakfast. This bar doesn’t put on
airs or try to be pretentious; for example, I tried to order a chocolate
martini, but the somewhat surly bartender said that she didn’t have the
ingredients. (I just wish that she could have suggested an alternative.) I
ended up trying the poinsettia (flat champagne with some sort of red juice and
garnished with an alcohol-marinated maraschino cherry [cherry bomb]), which
wasn’t very tasty, and the (alcoholic) lemonade, which was a bit better. Service
was quite slow at the tables, but a bit more attentive at the bar itself.
Locust Rendezvous is a fun neighborhood bar where you can drink and/or eat
and without breaking the bank.
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