Navigation
Support Us
Search

Best Place to Meet Single Men -- Besides a Bar

Best Buy

We weren't even looking for a humongous cooler full of man meat when we stumbled upon it. We had simply meandered into Best Buy, bored and lonely, thinking we'd pick up a movie with some eye candy in the starring role -- like Into the Blue or Shrek 2. That's when the hot guys just started spilling out of the doors and getting in their Jeeps and their Lexuses (Lexii?)! There were more inside, perusing DVDs, toying with computers, and even punching keys on the register. Duh -- we should have known from watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin that the electronics store is ripe (Hello, Paul Rudd!). The thing is, guys don't go to Best Buy to pick up women. They go here after they've finished bitching about how hard it is to meet a cool chick. They say, "Screw 'em, I'mma buy a new flat-screen TV." Hence, ladies, you are seriously in luck if you practice the fine art of the ambush and prepare questions like, "Excuse me, but do you know the difference between optical and digital zoom?" We're telling you -- even the checkout guy was a looker... if only pleated khaki pants and polo shirts weren't the biggest turnoffs known to women. But maybe you could help him lose the clothes.

Best Place for a Second Date

Mai-Kai Restaurant and Lounge

CandaceWest.com
Loud, dark, and pricey -- is there a better formula for all-important date number two? Broward's tiki mecca has all the makings of the place to close the deal you started negotiating in (nervous, crazy-making) date one. The low light helps minimize the sorts of thing she should have noticed the first time -- the thinning hair, the love handles, the look of sheer terror. And the Polynesian floorshow is loud and mesmerizing, which helps if the conversation wanes. Finally, the drinks are pricey enough to impress and potent enough that rules about waiting for date number three might get broken.

Best Place for the Sleepless

Primanti Brothers

It's 4 a.m. and you know the battle against insomnia is a lost cause. What to do? Drowning out the impending daylight with booze will only make things worse, so find an early edition of the morning paper, if you can, and hit the beach. At the corner of A1A and Sunrise is a little 24-hour pizza shop that serves breakfast and all sorts of great gut-busting grub to jump-start your morning. The cramped little counter shop serves some of the greatest late-night munchie solutions. They pile their sandwiches high and top them off with fries and slaw, just like the owner did in Pittsburgh 30 years ago to earn his fame. Take your food to go and cross the street to the beach. Eating lunch as the sun comes up will make some sort of sense in your sleep-deprived brain.

Best Place to Get Drunk in Broward

The Mental Ward

You knew this space better as Alex's Tavern, a canker sore of a bar with air so foul it would send your clothes home smelling like a tire fire. Fortunately, as the recommissioned Mental Ward, much of the old charm remains. But it's better. The Tuesday open-mic night is the kind of low-key, good-naturedly offensive affair that can make the small back bar feel like a dormitory hallway. (Sample lyric from a song called "I'm Gonna Whoop Your Ass": "Stop calling my mama's house in the middle of the night. That ain't cool. I have to pay the phone bill over there.") If you want to get schnockered, five bucks will get you all the tap beer you can drink that night. Wednesdays are beer pong nights. Thursday nights are dollar shots, drafts, and well drinks. How this place makes money, who knows? Who cares? All that matters is it's about a two-minute cab ride from Lester's Diner or Taco Bell, and you still have some dough in your pocket for a gordita.

Best Place to Get Drunk in Palm Beach

CJ's Draft House

Sitting down to get drunk is serious business. You can't do it at home because society will look down on you, so you have to go to town to keep up appearances. CJ's Draft House in mid-Boynton Beach has everything you need. Most weeknights, it's a quiet bar that caters to regulars, but on Tuesday nights, things are entirely different. Lori and Carlos set up for their karaoke bash at 9 p.m., and the regulars start lining up for the mic and for the $10 buckets of domestic beer. The singing is better than most karaoke nights at other places, and the participants take their crooning seriously. (But in a good way, we swear.) Anyway, the singing and cheap beer make for a great setup for what you're really after -- to get bent in a place where it's not just acceptable but par for the course.

Best Neighborhood Bar in South Broward

Sauer Apple Saloon

"Man, the stories you'll hear if you hang around this place..." says Mike, a regular patron of the Sauer Apple Saloon. He's just finished telling us about his days in Detroit, working as a line cook -- with Eminem ("Marshall was a real good kid. Real down-to-earth. Just the way he is when you see him in interviews"). Then Eugenio, the bartender, interrupts to tell us about floating over from Cuba on a raft. When he dips out to go make another of the bar's signature Sauer Apple martinis (with green-colored sugar on the rim), the other bartender, Alex, takes over storytelling duties, explaining what it was like to fire guns from a helicopter in Sierra Leone and Kosovo. That was right before some chick named Jill sits down and introduces herself. There's something about the Sauer Apple -- the open, airy space? the bar that opens onto the sidewalk? the menu full of comfort food? the live bands? the barrel of free peanuts, still in shells? -- that makes you feel welcome. This is the bar that, during last year's hurricanes, fired up its generator and kept the whole neighborhood fed. Oh, sure, Eugenio and Alex and whoever's sitting on the next stool over may not be your best friends for life -- but until last call, they will be.

Best Neighborhood Bar in Fort Lauderdale

Grady's Bar

A bar made from wood? In downtown Fort Lauderdale? Not Italian marble or Spanish-quarry-mined granite or turquoise-colored melted glass? Yes, Ôtis true. Though Grady's has been an inner-city fixture for 35 years, it's now surrounded by growth and development, even as the block it sits on (for better or worse) remains much as it looked when the place started. Some of the regulars too have that weathered look. But a real neighborhood joint isn't about chasing trends or having ten flat-screen TVs, fancy drinks, or happy-hour specials -- at this wood-paneled institution, it's about pool tables, mismatched chairs, a fog of Marlboro smoke, un-mufflered hogs, Bud Lite by the glass with friends, and co-workers hovering around, marveling at downtown's renaissance. This place may be stuck back in the Medieval age by modern standards, but a bar without valet parking, $12 mojitos, and a strip-mall parking lot is such a rarity nowadays, and the folks who frequent this unpretentious watering hole realize that all too well. Grady's is still with us -- but for how long, Spock? For. How. Long?

Best Neighborhood Bar in North Broward

Jesse's Xtreme Sports Bar

No, you don't have to base-jump or sky-surf your way into Jesse's, as the name implies. But once you get past the slightly silly moniker, you'll find that the scruffy watering hole represents what we like best about this part of town. Namely, that there's little "pomp" in Pompano Beach. It doesn't get much more casual than this dive, and that's why this is the place we go to buy a bucket of beers and watch football while hanging out on the deck overlooking Atlantic Boulevard. Or when the Steelers aren't playing (this being a hardcore Pittsburgh hangout), you can suck down a cold one and join in on the electronic Texas Hold 'Em game that tends to rope in just about everyone sitting at the bar. But here's the best-kept secret about this unassuming hole in the wall: Jesse's food is far better than a neighborhood bar has a right to serve. Trust us on this one and order the boneless wings and the sweet potato fries. Now that's the way to fight the creeping frou-frou redevelopment overtaking the rest of the county.

Best Neighborhood Bar in South Palm Beach

Nippers

Nippers has managed to keep a local-bar feel even in a town like Boca. While other local watering holes pretty up and scare off working stiffs and college types, Nippers has created an oasis for getting drunk in a sea of haute couture. On Wednesday, the club fills with anxious players as the pool and poker tourneys kick off. Drink specials are frequent, and a DJ plays until 5 a.m. on Thursday. Soused scholarship kids sing karaoke until 5 a.m. on Friday. Ladies night, on Saturday, is when you want to make your appearance, when the club fills with coeds after 2 a.m. and last call is still three hours away. The bar grub is surprisingly topnotch, especially the wraps and fries, and it's served all night. Amazing that in a chi-chi landscape, a joint for the lunch-pail crowd still thrives.

Best Neighborhood Bar in Central Palm

The Dirty Dwarf Pub

Dirty and dwarf -- not the two most attractive words in the English lexicon. In fact, we'd have to say that the owners are kind of, um, brave to name their establishment the Dirty Dwarf Pub. But in a world full of fake tiki bars and Bennigans look-alikes, the Dwarf offers a welcome alternative. Kind of bizarre, kind of dark, and all the way awesome, this place has battle axes hanging on the wall, 95 flavors of beer (24 on draft), and a menu full of intriguing eats (from vegan subs to "Scotch egg with chutney" -- a hard-boiled egg, wrapped in sausage, breaded, and deep-fried). If you're not one of the late-nighters who frequents this stop on Lake Worth's main drag, do find some time to discover it. As the bar's motto goes, "You always have time for a Ôshort one.'"

Best Of Broward-Palm Beach®

Best Of

Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our terms of use and our privacy policy The New Times Broward-Palm Beach may earn a portion of sales from products & services purchased through links on our site from our affiliate partners. ©2024 New Times BPB, LLC. All rights reserved.
Do Not Sell or Share My Information
Powered By Foundation