Bars are pretty obvious summer hideout options — they're dark, they're cool and they pretty much exist to make sure you don't run out of chilled liquids. But sitting, drinking and shooting the shit has to get old, even for those of us who live to sit, drink and shoot the shit. And it's not like there's much else to do at a bar, right?
If that's what you think, then you're obviously not the sort of person who's spent a lot of time in bars. Bars are like arcades for adults. Darts. Pinball machines. Cutting-edge bar-top touch-screen video games. Twenty-year-old stand-up video games. Golden Tee video golf, which is quite possibly the most popular coin-op game ever installed in a bar — the new version allows you to play in real time with virtual golfers in other bars thousands of miles away. Indoor shuffleboard courts (that's what that long table covered with a fine layer of sand is for). Do-it-yourself breathalyzer tests. Hell, you can kill an hour-and-a-half just shuffling through the countless tunes listed on contemporary digital jukeboxes.
There are tons of fun, time-wasting (and wallet-draining) activities at your fingertips in any of the hundreds of Tampa Bay area bars, pubs, taverns and dives.
Of course, most of them are a lot more fun when you've got two or eight drinks in you, but alcohol is optional; as long as you're 21 or older and tip every time you go back for a ginger ale or cranberry and soda, you can spend an entire day or evening in a bar and remain sober as a judge.
Pool is perhaps the most traditional and immediately bar-associated pastime in America. (Some might say darts, but at best, it's a toss-up.) Most bars have at least one rickety table, and most veteran bar-goers have played more than a few times. Some find they have an affinity, even a passion for the game, and some find that they're never going to get the hang of it no matter how many times they feed those three or four quarters into the table, but almost everybody agrees that a game sounds like fun after a couple of rounds.
If you're pretty good at pool, and maybe a little sick of playing with friends who don't take it as seriously as you do (or who just completely suck outright), you might want to consider a league game or tournament. It's pretty much impossible to list every watering hole in the Bay area that hosts a weekly game, but it's almost certain that any bar down the street from your house with four or more pool tables has its own evening competition sometime between Monday and Thursday.
Like most organized (read: televised) sports, pool has dozens of different official and semi-official organizations: intramural leagues, tavern leagues, local leagues, regional leagues, state leagues. If you're just looking for a little friendly competition to test your skills, however, you needn't really worry about all that. Most bars will allow you to sign up, pay a small entry fee and get in on the action; if worse comes to worse, you may have to pay a higher entry fee to become a member of whichever league sponsors the event.
On Monday nights, for instance, a courteous, long-haired gentleman named Harry Nash runs a small tournament at the Seminole location of a local sports bar chain called, uh, the Sports Bar & Grill. For five bucks, anyone can play for a shot at a chunk of the pot, with the payout for the top spots depending on how many players sign up. The game is 8-Ball, which is the one everyone knows — somebody's solids, somebody's stripes, and whoever sinks all their balls and the 8 first wins.
On the evening we stopped by, five sharks put up the five bucks for a series of elimination games that kicked off at 8 p.m.; the field was whittled down to two over the course of a couple of hours. The players — all men this night — appeared to be locals and bar employees, but everyone was friendly and no overdriven competitive bullshit was on display. It seems like the kind of tourney that would welcome new players, and indeed, Nash confirmed it was open to all.
Be forewarned, however — anyone interested had better bring their A game; Nash and his regulars are skilled players, the kind that hang around the tables long after the event is over, playing harder and more obscure billiards games to amuse and impress one another.
Maybe you should call around and try to find a competition with a separate "Drunk and Only Occasionally Accurate" division.
The Sports Bar & Grill 9685 Bay Pines Blvd., Seminole, 727-393-9110.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2006.