THE LURE:
A bar named “The Office” seems like an obscenely appropriate place to cast out some tongue-in-cheek pick-up lines. As soon as I set my mind to the task, it was almost too easy to come up innuendo laden lines that made light of the ironically named bar: “Wow, I can’t believe you’re at the office on a Saturday. You’re so diligent, I’d love to see what results COME of all your HARD work”, “You look like you might be having a HARD night at the office, so I’d love to COME with you somewhere whenever you GET OFF”. “I hope you won’t report me for sexual harassment at the office if I tell you how sexy you’re looking tonight.”
As a backup to the office specific lines, I was also prepared to make note of the fact that, per a friend of mine, February 9th is official “read a book in the bath day”, it's definitely not as exciting a holiday as Australia Day, but I figured another good line to cast out yesterday night would be: “Did you know that today is official read a book in the bath day? … Have you celebrated yet ‘cause I haven’t, but I’d love to observe this momentous occasion with you later.”
THE CAST:
I sank like an anchor more than I reeled in the boys hook line and sinker.
Last night I had made tentative plans to meet some friends at The Office, a bar in San Carlos, after they’d gone to a wine tasting yesterday. In my mind, I was thinking we’d go there after dinner – maybe around 9:00 or 9:30PM, so when I received a text from my friends at 5:30PM: saying “We’re heading over to the bar now”, I was still sitting in my kitchen having arts and crafts time with my roommate (making a greeting card for a friend who just got a great job opportunity). Hmm, I thought as I hurriedly finished up my card, I hope they are going to want to hang out for a while, ‘cause it may be pretty hard to pick someone up at 6:30 or 7:00 PM. I’m always up for a challenge though, so I decided even if they weren’t going to stay long I’d still try and cast out a line or two at the early crowd.
By the time I got there, at 6:30, my friends had already finished their beers and appetizers and were only planning to stay for another half hour or so. I perused the menu of cleverly named drinks such as the “sick day” and the “pink slip” but decided I wouldn’t partake of anything since my friends were pretty eager to get going. So much for a pick up tonight I thought as I looked around the mostly deserted bar, at the husband, wife and 3 young girls sitting around a fire pit next to us, the tables of couples enjoying an early meal at a few of the other outdoor patio tables and fire pits. No one was sitting at any of the long bar tables outside on the patio area or inside the interior of the bar. The outdoor bar service area was not open yet and the only people sitting at the bar inside were two middle aged men who were intently watching and jeering at a basketball game that was playing on the bar’s TVs. Yup. This isn’t going to happen I was thinking to myself just as the cute Latino waiter who’d been serving my friends came over with the check. hmm. I figured maybe I could at least try a line on him.
Since he was actually working though, my customized “The Office” lines wouldn’t really have the same effect… I started to psych myself out. It felt kind of awkward and tacky to hit on someone while they were serving a table full of my friends and I, so in the end I didn’t muster up enough Chutzpah to verbally pick up on the cute waiter, but I did try for a pick up on the tab, writing a quick note on the receipt: “Thank you for being so serviceable to us this evening. Let me know if you ever want me to repay the favor sometime.” And then left my phone number. Slutty and to the point... we'll see how that works out. I definitely would like to see who comes and goes from the office during peak hours, so I probably will get to work on that one of these nights.
I had thought that was going to be the extent of my bar going that evening, but as I was driving my friends home. I got a text from my coworker asking me if I wanted to meet her and two of our friends at The Underground in Redwood City. I sure did, so at around 10:30 I walked through the unassuming glass doors of the Underground and hung by the bar while I waited for my friends to arrive.
There seemed to be plenty of things to keep a group occupied at the Underground, a pool table and two beer pong tables downstairs and the same set up upstairs as well, plus a shelf downstairs full of board games. There were not a lot of chairs or tables to sit at though, a cluster of 3 or 4 wine barrel tables and a total of about 8 stools between them all downstairs and upstairs there were another 2 or 3 wine barrel tables and stoops as well as some bench seating by the beer pong tables. Overall the bar felt a little dingy and unclean, so my initial reaction when I went into the downstairs bathroom and there was a ratty easy chair facing the toilet, was: Of course there is… at least I know where to find a private lounge where I can chill in a disgusting but comfy seat and hang out with my friends while the’re peeing… it makes total sense that there is almost as much seating in the bathroom as in the entire rest of the bar.
After my initial assessment of my grody surroundings, it didn’t seem too surprising to me that the crowd was pretty sparse even on a Saturday night. (Although my coworker, who has been to The Underground quite a few times, tells me that sometimes it can get quite busy there.) The folks that were there were probably early to mid-20s and most were pretty attractive though, so that was a plus. The bartender upstairs was in charge of the music and was playing a mix of current dance hits, some 90s and of course, my coworker requested that they play “baby got back” and the bartender was happy to oblige her. Again, per my co-worker, there is often a DJ at the stage set up in the upstairs section of the bar.
A few beers helped me to loosen up, get the stick out of my ass and forget about the cold dank ambiance pretty quickly, so I had a lot of fun playing beer pong and dancing with my friends while keeping my eyes open for any hot guys I might want to reel in. At the intermission between our first and second beer pong games, I set my sites on a cute bespectacled guy sitting on one of the benches upstairs and I took advantage in the lull between games to go cast my line.
A bar named “The Office” seems like an obscenely appropriate place to cast out some tongue-in-cheek pick-up lines. As soon as I set my mind to the task, it was almost too easy to come up innuendo laden lines that made light of the ironically named bar: “Wow, I can’t believe you’re at the office on a Saturday. You’re so diligent, I’d love to see what results COME of all your HARD work”, “You look like you might be having a HARD night at the office, so I’d love to COME with you somewhere whenever you GET OFF”. “I hope you won’t report me for sexual harassment at the office if I tell you how sexy you’re looking tonight.”
As a backup to the office specific lines, I was also prepared to make note of the fact that, per a friend of mine, February 9th is official “read a book in the bath day”, it's definitely not as exciting a holiday as Australia Day, but I figured another good line to cast out yesterday night would be: “Did you know that today is official read a book in the bath day? … Have you celebrated yet ‘cause I haven’t, but I’d love to observe this momentous occasion with you later.”
THE CAST:
I sank like an anchor more than I reeled in the boys hook line and sinker.
Last night I had made tentative plans to meet some friends at The Office, a bar in San Carlos, after they’d gone to a wine tasting yesterday. In my mind, I was thinking we’d go there after dinner – maybe around 9:00 or 9:30PM, so when I received a text from my friends at 5:30PM: saying “We’re heading over to the bar now”, I was still sitting in my kitchen having arts and crafts time with my roommate (making a greeting card for a friend who just got a great job opportunity). Hmm, I thought as I hurriedly finished up my card, I hope they are going to want to hang out for a while, ‘cause it may be pretty hard to pick someone up at 6:30 or 7:00 PM. I’m always up for a challenge though, so I decided even if they weren’t going to stay long I’d still try and cast out a line or two at the early crowd.
By the time I got there, at 6:30, my friends had already finished their beers and appetizers and were only planning to stay for another half hour or so. I perused the menu of cleverly named drinks such as the “sick day” and the “pink slip” but decided I wouldn’t partake of anything since my friends were pretty eager to get going. So much for a pick up tonight I thought as I looked around the mostly deserted bar, at the husband, wife and 3 young girls sitting around a fire pit next to us, the tables of couples enjoying an early meal at a few of the other outdoor patio tables and fire pits. No one was sitting at any of the long bar tables outside on the patio area or inside the interior of the bar. The outdoor bar service area was not open yet and the only people sitting at the bar inside were two middle aged men who were intently watching and jeering at a basketball game that was playing on the bar’s TVs. Yup. This isn’t going to happen I was thinking to myself just as the cute Latino waiter who’d been serving my friends came over with the check. hmm. I figured maybe I could at least try a line on him.
Since he was actually working though, my customized “The Office” lines wouldn’t really have the same effect… I started to psych myself out. It felt kind of awkward and tacky to hit on someone while they were serving a table full of my friends and I, so in the end I didn’t muster up enough Chutzpah to verbally pick up on the cute waiter, but I did try for a pick up on the tab, writing a quick note on the receipt: “Thank you for being so serviceable to us this evening. Let me know if you ever want me to repay the favor sometime.” And then left my phone number. Slutty and to the point... we'll see how that works out. I definitely would like to see who comes and goes from the office during peak hours, so I probably will get to work on that one of these nights.
I had thought that was going to be the extent of my bar going that evening, but as I was driving my friends home. I got a text from my coworker asking me if I wanted to meet her and two of our friends at The Underground in Redwood City. I sure did, so at around 10:30 I walked through the unassuming glass doors of the Underground and hung by the bar while I waited for my friends to arrive.
There seemed to be plenty of things to keep a group occupied at the Underground, a pool table and two beer pong tables downstairs and the same set up upstairs as well, plus a shelf downstairs full of board games. There were not a lot of chairs or tables to sit at though, a cluster of 3 or 4 wine barrel tables and a total of about 8 stools between them all downstairs and upstairs there were another 2 or 3 wine barrel tables and stoops as well as some bench seating by the beer pong tables. Overall the bar felt a little dingy and unclean, so my initial reaction when I went into the downstairs bathroom and there was a ratty easy chair facing the toilet, was: Of course there is… at least I know where to find a private lounge where I can chill in a disgusting but comfy seat and hang out with my friends while the’re peeing… it makes total sense that there is almost as much seating in the bathroom as in the entire rest of the bar.
After my initial assessment of my grody surroundings, it didn’t seem too surprising to me that the crowd was pretty sparse even on a Saturday night. (Although my coworker, who has been to The Underground quite a few times, tells me that sometimes it can get quite busy there.) The folks that were there were probably early to mid-20s and most were pretty attractive though, so that was a plus. The bartender upstairs was in charge of the music and was playing a mix of current dance hits, some 90s and of course, my coworker requested that they play “baby got back” and the bartender was happy to oblige her. Again, per my co-worker, there is often a DJ at the stage set up in the upstairs section of the bar.
A few beers helped me to loosen up, get the stick out of my ass and forget about the cold dank ambiance pretty quickly, so I had a lot of fun playing beer pong and dancing with my friends while keeping my eyes open for any hot guys I might want to reel in. At the intermission between our first and second beer pong games, I set my sites on a cute bespectacled guy sitting on one of the benches upstairs and I took advantage in the lull between games to go cast my line.
“Do you know what today is?” I asked him
“No. What?” He asked
“National read a book in the bath day…. Have you celebrated yet?"
"Uhm... No.”
“Me neither… … … " I said. When he did not take advantage of the opportunity I’d given him to fill in a sexy reply, and I couldn’t remember my line about having him come celebrate with me later, I threw out an awkward: “I was going to celebrate earlier but my roommates and I have a shared bathroom, and I didn’t want to be the one chillin’ in the tub finishing up war and peace while someone was about to have a potty emergency…”
My new acquaintance obviously didn’t have much to say in reply to that awesomely awkward tid bit, so I casually excused myself saying: "oh hey, look at that, my friends are done setting up for our beer pong game, I should get back to that!" Needless to say, I did not give or receive any digits that evening, but despite the fact that I wasn’t able to land a catch with my line, I did have a good night overall. I wouldn’t say I’d never go back to the Underground, but it probably wouldn’t be my first choice of establishments to visit on a Saturday night.
THE SPOT(s):
THE OFFICE:
Stylish and comfy. Lots of tvs at the inside bar to distract the men, which is not something I personally am a fan of, but if you’re a guy who likes to watch sports while you drink and over pay for fried food, then there you go – enjoy!
I love that they have several fire pits that you can sit around outside and I like that you have the option of indoor or outdoor seating. Plus I personally appreciate the irony and wit that went into naming the drinks and the bar itself.
I wouldn’t recommend dining there though. The food didn’t have any particular heightened taste or appeal to match the elevated prices they charge.
THE UNDERGROUND:
A good place to go when you’ve got a group of friends and you want to hang out, but don’t mind a dank atmosphere and the early 20s kids that were there last night certainly didn’t seem to. They certainly aren’t lacking for entertainment options with the beer pong and pool tables + board games they provide as well as the danceable music.
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