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 Entertainment | March 2007 
One Man, One Year, One Thousand Bars
 Dan Freeman - Forbes.com
| | Dan Freeman is a retired computer consultant who chronicled his journey through 1,000 bars at www.thousandbars.com. |
The longest journey begins with a single sip - in my case a sip of Dewar's and soda. On New Year's Day 2005, my wife and I were at my mother-in-law's house for dinner. When it came time for coffee we discovered that we had no milk, so my brother-in-law and I volunteered to go to the store.
We had an ulterior motive. I had recently made it a goal to drink in a thousand different bars in a single year, and there was no better time to start.
The first stop on our milk run was Big Mike's Pelham Grill, our second was B&B's Fifth Avenue Pub and our third was The Copper Still, all in New Rochelle, a suburb of New York City. By the time we returned home my journey had begun in earnest, and there would be no turning back.
I knew that my goal wasn't on par with climbing Mount Everest, but it wasn't going to be easy either. Drinking a thousand drinks in one bar over the course of a year is a piece of cake; lots of people do that. Having a drink in a thousand different bars is something different altogether. It would require planning and discipline. To keep count - and to track my progress - I decided to blog about my adventures.
I made some early mistakes. For a while I tried entering blog posts after I got home from the bars, but that was a disaster. Instead I settled into a daily routine of posting my blog entry about the bars I had visited the day before, then planning my next foray and heading out.
By the end of the first week I had managed to have a drink in 28 bars, but they were mostly in my own Brooklyn neighborhood. I should have saved those for rainy days or picked them off one by one. I had to bid many of them a fond farewell, knowing that in all likelihood I would see little of them until the following year.
Despite these strategic errors, by the end of January I had hit 146 bars and felt as though I was making fine progress.
On Feb. 1, I hit five bars in the Wall Street area before heading to Walker's in Tribeca to meet my wife as well as a reporter from the New York Post who had stumbled across my blog. We chatted for an hour or so and I had a couple of draft Boddington Ales. Much to my surprise, a few days later the article about me appeared along with my picture. If I ever thought about not completing this odyssey it was out of the question now. Too many people had seen what I was up to.
On Feb. 15, I headed to Mexico with 204 bars under my belt - literally. My waistline was expanding. By the time I returned at the end of March that number would be up to 350. And oh, the bars in Mexico.
My favorite was La Ballena Azul, one of the few remaining authentic Mexican taverns left in Puerto Vallarta. It was kind of dead in the afternoon, but quite lively at night with a few hookers, the occasional brawl and a lot of hollering. The bar served great spicy peanuts, and there was a machine where you could buy cigarettes one at a time.
Andale, by contrast, catered almost exclusively to tourists. Their big thing was to have a guy bring in a burro every night. Why this was considered so amusing I really don't know.
But I did what I had to do in service of my greater goal. When you find your self having a cocktail at the Red Lobster or the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company - watching the movie Forrest Gump on the television above the bar, naturally - you know you are on a serious mission and not just having fun. Sacrifices had to be made.
Quite unexpectedly, my blog began to attract a following. I never really expected this. As I approached bar No. 500, I posted the location, The Gate in Brooklyn, and the day I would be there, May 14. As a result, there was quite a turnout to welcome me and cheer me on. It was also covered by an Associated Press reporter and a photographer.
That's when things really started to happen. On May 26, I met up with a reporter and photographer from the New York Daily News who had asked if they could follow me around. We met for a drink at the bar at the Port Authority Bowling Alley and then headed to a great little boxing-themed bar called Jimmy's Corner. We wrapped up our day at Bellevue, a dive bar near Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.
The next day a three-person German television crew showed up at my apartment at 11 a.m. to film me hard at work making a blog entry. They followed me around for the day, and we hit P.J. Clarke's before heading to Langan's, where I had arranged to meet with Steve Donleavy of the New York Post and a photographer. He wanted to interview me and, I think, get on German television. We shared several drinks together and swapped stories while the German crew filmed and the photographer took pictures. I was starting to feel like a real star.
On Memorial Day all the articles hit the papers, including the Associated Press story, which ran all over the world. I began to get thousands of hits on my blog as well as e-mails with words of encouragement and invitations to meet for drinks. Several people sent me t-shirts from their favorite bars.
I was surprised that my journey struck a chord with so many people. I had television crews follow me around on three more occasions and did numerous radio interviews. I was in several magazines and even ended up on the same page as Mariah Carey, Angelina Jolie and Tom Cruise in the Japan Times Weekly. Of course, I also shared the page with Hwang Woo Suk. It just doesn't get any better than that.
I also got a chance to hobnob with politicians. I hit bar No. 777, F.R. Woody's, during a trip to Ranier, Minn. The mayor of the neighboring city of International Falls showed up, although, to be sure, she seemed more interested in the bar owner than in me. Later Marty Markowitz invited me to his inauguration as Brooklyn borough president, where he introduced me as a real Brooklyn character and a true mensch.
When, on Dec. 31, I had my final drink at The Pioneer in Manhattan, all the local television stations covered the affair. It was gratifying to see how many people showed up to celebrate the occasion. Some I had met along the way and others had just read about my journey on my blog or in the papers.
Much as I enjoyed my journey, it wasn't something I would ever do again. I missed being able to just settle in at my local bar for a couple of beers, and being able to stick around for more than one drink if I ran into an interesting crowd. Well, OK, sometimes I did hang around. But I had my objective and I never lost sight of it.
By the end of my journey I had drunk in all five boroughs of New York City as well as New Jersey, Minnesota, Canada, Mexico and Spain. I even ended up doing a guest bartending stint at Siberia, a great dive bar on the west side of Manhattan. I quickly gave up any thought of being able to bartend professionally - and I only had to deal with a beer and shots crowd. Heaven knows what I would have done if someone had asked for a Cosmopolitan or something. I know which side of the bar I prefer.
Dan Freeman is a retired computer consultant who chronicled his journey through 1,000 bars at www.thousandbars.com. |
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