got the distinct impression that patrons of The Kingshead were “battening down the hatches,” even though I don’t know what that means. A stones-throw from the south beaches of the Georgia Straight, one is left to wonder as she walks into the Kingshead, if this dingy masterpiece was once a seafaring vessel. A pirate ship, even, for the thump of high-heels on the plank wood floor sounds dangerously close to how a wooden leg might. The bar is tucked away in the rafters, as are many of the pews and benches for road weary pint-seekers. And was that a parrot? Yes it was.

What the KH sacrifices in cleanliness, or any architectural symmetry, it gains back gangbusters in eclectic charm. It puts even the dingiest, road-tested, hooligan-laden Irish pubs to shame. Feel like carving your name in the table with a butter knife, you’re way too late. Mike Hunt already carved his in the ceiling with a bloody dagger. By daring to say that anything goes, I would be selling the place short. Anything doesn’t just go for the latte-drinking crowd that shuffles in before heading downtown to clubville. Anything goes for those who challenge what ‘anything’ means.

As is a developing trend in many polarized Vancouver cocktail spots, all kinds truly do congregate wherever they like. The college kids come for the very cheap beer. The Kings Lager on tap sells for a paltry $3.50, and is the choice of this reviewer. I admire a place that will buy the cheapest kegs and label them the house brand. Highballs, lowballs, oddballs, and goofballs can drink whatever they please for dirt cheap as well.

Perhaps the grizzled old coots who mix it up with the frat boys and sorority girls seek not the eye candy, like you’d expect. Nightly, amidst the certain melee of teenagers getting drunk on a dime, one brave soul takes center stage, with drunkards hanging off the walls around him, to put in time as an undiscovered performer. The moment he tries to pawn off his Vancouver-inspired rainy-day ballads on the live crowd, he subjects himself to having bottles tossed his way. If he does as he is told, and sings New Orleans Is Sinking for the second time, he will have a chorus of one hundred singing along side him. Getting drunk and singing; some might argue it’s the only reason to go out at all. - C.L.