Bacchus must have been drunk
This morning on a walk off my normal route, a notice to serve liquor on a dilapidated-looking building just next to the train tracks caught my eye. Someone had pinned the notice very high, just above a previously vandalized one.
The notice was for a business called the Bacchus Wine Bar. This future establishment will be graced by train tracks on one side and a hole-in-the-wall automobile paint shop on the other. (No, I’m NOT kidding!)
Not easily perturbed by the obvious potential for problems, I googled the place and nearly choked on my non-alcoholic tea while reading the following:
“Bacchus Wine Bar (BWB) will be located in the upcoming, upscale and recently renovated downtown Sacramento area. BWB is Sacramento’s newest concept to an already vibrant and bourgeoning night life and entertainment scene. “
Whoa, looks like Bacchus has already been dipping into his stores of wine. This is okay because, after all, he’s a God who made his reputation on wild drunkenness.
Other ‘net searches find that mumbles about the sleek renovation of the future home of Bacchus have rumbled since early 2006. There’s no visible renovation, but I CAN tell you that there was a guy out by the tracks last week who was drinking wine. I believe it’s the kind of wine normally sold in boxes.
Bacchus is not only here in town, but he’s never left. Not really.
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Love this post…I wondered the same thing about the renovations there. I have also seen a few winos there. Maybe they are being paid to advertise for Bacchus?
Well, given that they’ll be, by my quick count, wine bar #4 in town, they are hardly that cutting edge. I do love wine bars, however, so go nuts I say.
And those licenses can take a loooong time to get, so maybe that accounts for the delays.
The drunken joke IS that they say they’re cutting edge…and of course the other one is that Sacramento has a vibrant and burgeoning night life. I still hear that people have to go to “the City” for serious fun. (Not that we’re not “a city”–we’re just not …the…City.
If the baseline for having a vibrant nightlife is San Francisco, we might as well hang it up and stay home. It ain’t going to happen–nor, really, should we want it to. The question to ask should be more along the lines of: Is there more to do at night than there was a decade ago?
Hell, I was walking around last night at around 10:00-11:00 PM, (from city hall to around 21st Street) and there was actually quite a lot of activity–people walking around besides myself, restaurants open, bars open and making noise, activity. Was it frickin’ Mardi Gras? No, but it was a heck of a lot more busy, active, and, dare I say, vibrant than what you would have seen on a Tuesday night a decade ago.
About “cutting-edge” hyperbole: well, it’s an ad, and one intended to attract yuppies, so of course it’s going to be silly and overblown. Would it be more “Sacramento” if the ad copy read:
“Well, um, it’s probably just going to suck, because this is Sacramento and stuff sucks here, but we’re going to sell some wine that’s okay and maybe you could drop by instead of moving to San Francisco where everything is vibrant.”
I think you may want to try and “hear” less about people having “serious fun” and experience more, Ursula… though i wouldn’t want anyone to lose their hard earned sacramento self-deprecator badge.
The place will be a wine bar and art gallery in a nice neighborhood, next to a new restaurant and across from a shopping center - and i don’t think that anyone who opens a business in the midtown vicinity minds the train tracks - they kinda come with the territory.
You are right though - you may see a hobo from time to time. Of course if you want some “serious” hobo fun, you still gotta go to san francisco.
Okay, you all let me know how it is when you visit. I will reserve my armchair comments until the place actually opens, whenever that is.
I was born in 1941, up in Greenville, Ca, by early teens I knew I wanted to be a hobo and Sacramento Wino, spent some time in sleazy hotels there in the early 60s and hopped a few freights north, south and east, but hoboing too demanding and rigorous. Bot UP RR and BNSF RR rough on hobos. Also, gave up the juice years ago. Interested now in California metapolitics, still have a place in Greenville, but live in Kennewick.
L