Ahead of Super Sunday, Narrowing The Field

There are so many worthwhile new bars in town these days that Mrs Banks and I are grappling hard with the question of where we should watch the Super Bowl. This isn’t so easy. Just a few years ago, of course, the default choices were and but, since then, a host of new places have opened that offer sensibly priced beer and darn nice televisions. By way of field research, we’ve been spending the playoffs eating our way through the newer alternatives.

Early in the process I decided to bring some rigor to the evaluation by drawing up a checklist—kind of a Zagat form for in-bar football-watching. “The price of the beer should be at the top of the list,” I told my wife, pointing out that we’ll end up spending many, many hours on Super Bowl Sunday at whatever venue we choose. If the place charges, say, 50 cents more for a pint than the others do, by the end of the night we’d be talking real money. Comfort and sturdiness of the barstools is also key (broad, padded seats earn double points!), as is the quality of TV sightlines. We’ll also be looking long and hard at rest room cleanliness.

“What about the food?” Mrs. Banks asked after she’d looked over my list.

“Good thinking!” I told her. “Write down ‘Must have a deep fryer.’”

You’re wondering why we’ll be watching the game at a bar at all, rather than in someone’s living room at a Super Bowl party the way everyone else in town seems to. I can explain. We used to go to Super Bowl parties every year, too, and even hosted a few. But lately people seem to have gotten into the habit of bringing their children to these things. I’m not against children. But there’s a time and place and place for them: I find that their presence while I’m watching football distracts me from my libationing and restricts my vocabulary when I yell at the television. At a certain level, you have to wonder what the point is. The last straw came two years ago when Jordan Riordan*, who lives up the street and was eleven years old at the time, ended up with some extraordinarily lucrative boxes in our party’s betting grid and walked home with $1,200 in his pocket. I felt the way the fortysomething-year-old tennis players at our club must feel whenever some hotshot college-age son of a member zips his way through the club championship without even losing a set. Jordan’s father trades distressed debt at Morgan Stanley, and seems to buy himself a new Lexus every three years. “If Norm Riordan* thinks it’s okay for Jordan to suddenly come into $1,200, he darn well could have given it to him himself,” I told Mrs. Banks on our drive home. She kept telling me it was all blind luck, and that I should calm down. She was right, of course, but I was still fuming over the fact I’d managed to draw two 2s, a 5, and an 8.

In any event, the evaluation continues. This past Saturday we were at the bar at to watch the 49ers come from behind to beat the Saints. A definite candidate! and are still to go, and then . It’s tough work, but it needs to be done.

*Alias