When I was in college, Echo was where all my hip student radio station friends would go in search of stories that would make you cringe come Sunday morning. It was dingy enough to satisfy dive bar needs but sketchy enough to make you seem edgy in comparison to all your Plaza-going friends. White girl from the suburbs of Minnesota needs all the edge she can get.
Echo has since been revamped as of last summer or so and while I miss some of the "edge", I usually get by just fine as I'm conquering one of their delicious, giant calzones. Also, after [an attempt at] playing tennis last week, my friend introduced me to the fact that Echo dishes out 5 tacos for $4 on Thursdays. Nothing compliments tennis quite like tacos so we nabbed a table inside, grabbed a beer and placed our orders with the friendly waiter. He looked at us with an eyebrow raised (probably having confused us with Maria Sharapova and Anna Kournikova) and asked whether we were planning to share the 5 tacos. Ha - silly, rabbit. "That'll be 5 tacos each please."
Nothing crazy unique going on here but it's a comfortable venue with an adequate beer selection, enjoyable bar food and saucy-ish tennis players.