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| - I'm rethinking this whole "local" thing.
Pogue Mahone's couldn't be any closer. It lies in the lobby of my current office.
It's the place we all go when celebrating a colleagues success, or when wishing them well in their future endaevours.
In other words, it's where we go to drink with our bosses.
There's a lot of people here who also drink with their bosses. The place is full most evenings. Lots of sportcoats sliding off chair-backs and ties askew on sweaty necks. The tables are close together, and a terminally fouled-up reservation system perversely means you often get a better table than you bargained for.
Seriously-once we were told the best they could do was a few high chairs (the bane of my drinking existence) by the bar; we wound up with full seating on the floor for our party-the tradeoff being that we were shoehorned beside a tray of funky oysters, but who's complaining?
So it's close. It's just not very good. A fine selection of beer on tap at a finer markup means I wind up paying $10 for a watery pint of Guinness. Cocktails are similarly watered down and gussied up, and shorts run a buck or two more than average (not that you're paying if it's your celebration. God love the generosity of coworkers).
Food varies from OK to abhorrent. A platter of nachos is surprisingly good-mind you, it's cheese and chopped veg on chips. What could go wrong?
What does go wrong is most of the lunch menu. Fish and chips is somehow both overcooked past toughness and limp and greasy. The fries are amber-brown but lack crunch. Coleslaw is an afterthought. A burger is mostly lukewarm gristle, and an order of roast beef sliders is all bun. It is to laugh, other than the $14 appetizer price tag.
Coffee arrives similarly grey and lukewarm and ashy-tasting.
There's a difference between a beloved local and a by-the-numbers cash-grab, made to take advantage of a captive market.
For my money, I'll take the party down Yonge Street where I can drink cheaper, or better, or both.
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