Not very far up Kearny Street from Market, sharp-eyed observers will discover alleyways filled with tent-covered tables and communal café seating. Turn down one such alley and the neighborhood feels suddenly Continental — like you're in Paris or Venice, waiting for a coterie of international students to come pool their money for a bottle of wine, possibly before dying of consumption or vandalizing a synagogue. (Old Europe had its downsides.)
Ireland is also waiting there. Some of these establishments are Irish taverns, and if you've ever wondered "where can all of my friends go to get a drink in San Francisco that won't feel like we're crammed into a shoebox full of hipsters?" then this is your answer. These taverns are big in a way that most San Francisco bars rarely get. Though usually crowded, it seems like it's always possible to find room.
It would be cruel of me to say that this is their only appeal, but as I was lifting a chalice of Leffe at The Irish Bank, I realized that I have never been there without a big group of people. This bar has other virtues, but it has simply never come up as a place to go on my own, or with a small group. No one ever says "Darling, it's just the two of us. Let's go to The Irish Bank." At least, no one's ever said that to me.
It claims to be "one of America's most historically accurate and romantic Irish Pubs" — and that may be the problem. There's absolutely nothing romantic about a place designed to encourage people to drink this much. So let's step back from "romantic" — the sounds I heard coming from the urinals at 10 p.m. won't be putting anyone in the mood — but we'll absolutely give it "authentic."
Modeled after a rural Irish cottage — complete with antique water pump — The Irish Bank's insides are wholly covered with kitsch, advertisements, and knickknacks of the sort that you have to be drunk to mistake for anything resembling décor. This is the problem with authenticity: It doesn't live up to the hype. As Ireland's native son Oscar Wilde repeatedly told us, perfection is artificial. It is an elegant lie. There are certain kinds of beauty, certain kinds of romance, that simply don't occur in nature. It's why we have poetry. (Certain kinds of explosions also don't occur in nature, which is why we have movies.)
This bar might almost look romantic when nobody is there and you have some of those gorgeous, wood-paneled rooms all to yourself. But this is not an Oscar Wilde bar. It doesn't just choose authenticity at the end of the day, it gets up at dawn and eats authenticity for breakfast. It's a tavern, not a museum piece, and nothing about it connects aesthetically unless you're drinking, and drinking hard.
With about 15 beers on tap and another 20 bottled, the Bank's selection is designed to cover the bases rather than extend the palate: it's not a "beer bar" as the Bay Area thinks of them. With about 10 wines to choose from, it's hardly a wine bar, either. Its cocktail list, too, tends to cover the bases — although I suspect it's more adventurous than any bar in rural Ireland probably gets — with bartenders who pour them with a heavy hand. Drinks here are alcohol delivery vehicles, not the proving grounds for mixologists. If you're not here with a bunch of friends toasting each other, you're not really here.
The Irish Bank's secret weapon is its menu: Traditional pub fare, plentiful options, and reasonable prices mean everyone at the table can find something to eat and then keep drinking. The Irish Bank would have been perfect for me maybe 10 years ago, when I was drinking heavily for its own sake and singing Irish pub songs in English bars to woo European women. Today I respect it for what it is. When one of my friends says, "There's a bunch of us, let's go to The Irish Bank," I go willingly. But I'm trying to find a bar where Oscar Wilde is sitting in the corner drinking absinthe, remarking that either this wallpaper has to go or he does.
That bar is down another alley.
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