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| - I remember driving by this bar a couple of years ago and laughing out loud because the parking lot was packed at 8am. I was asking myself, who the HELL *are* these people, getting loaded this early?!
Fast forward two years later, and I've become one of "those people" Well, with the caveat that I'm not getting loaded.
Now I figger that my excuse is about as good as they come. I'm working nights from 6pm to 6am, and after putting in a 12 hour shift, sometimes a man wants to have a damn drink, get something to eat, read the newspaper, relax a bit. This avoids the unwelcome alternative of "unwinding" by drinking at home alone at 7am, which tends to generate feelings of being a total loser.
So anyway, ye Old Brass Rail opens bright and early at 6am, which is perfect. As with any bar opening at this hour, there is your contingent of old man alkeeholic regulars, but this particular place also seems to be popular with the nurses getting off the night shift at a nearby hospital. They usually enter in groups of 2-4, ordering double long island ice teas, and getting their drink on in their scrubs. Some of them are even cute.
The service is attentive and low-key. Drinks are cheap and there are several breakfast specials available for under $5. The food is nothing amazing but it gets the job done and the price is definitely right. The first time I walked out of there after paying $7 for breakfast with a tall gin and grapefruit juice, I knew that I had found a winner.
There is a smoking patio with misters, but much to my dismay I got bawled out one day for taking a plate of pancakes out there. APPARENTLY, there is no food served on the patio, nor is the consumption of food that you have brought out to the patio yourself tolerated. The reason given was pretty lame too, it basically boiled down to the fact that they didn't want to deal with people bitching about smoke ruining their breakfast, or something, blah blah blah. So far, that has been my only negative experience at this place.
The joint could use face lift, like another reviewer mentioned, but doing so might erase some of its character.
Just watch your step on the way out the door, there's a slight incline that's easy to get tripped up on. :-O Regulars will back me up on this.
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