Pattaconk 1850

So here we were in Noank, CT on the Connecticut Shore, and we were facing a 45 minute road trip back home on Route 2, which is a boring little two-lane highway. So, we started to look for an alternate route back. Opening up the map that we found in the middle of one of those tourist magazines, we started looking at our options. Then we saw it: the perfect route to get back to Hartford. We would take I-95 to Lyme, then take Route 9 to Hartford… which would take us by Chester, CT, home of Pattaconk 1850.

Pattaconk 1850 has legendary status at The Toronado, our old bar in San Francisco. One day, a person came into the bar with a Pattaconk shirt, which has the exact same logo as the Toronado. Ian, the bartender, immediately bought the shirt right off the back of the patron so he could further scrutinize the logo. Somehow, a bar in rural Connecticut had the same logo as one of the best beer bars in the country… and we all wanted to know what the hell was going on. Since we would be passing within a few miles of Pattaconk, we decided to stop in and scope this place out so we could make a report back to the bartenders at the Toronado.

Chester, CT is a small village in the middle nowhere, and is the exact definition of the word "quaint".. small little restaurants, well manicured lawns, and a pub (Pattaconk&#41 in the middle of downtown. We found parking and walked in. The bar was a definite beer bar, with twenty taps and a number of bottled beers. We sat down, ordered up a couple of pints and looked the place over. It was a good looking place, lots of wood… a beautiful bar, and many regulars (or at least they seemed like regulars&#41 milling around. We struck up a conversation with one of the bartenders and asked if they sold t-shirts. They did sell shirts, and the bartender escorted me to the dining room where there was a shirt display so I could choose the color. I picked a forest green shirt and proceeded to ask him about the logo. He told me that a friend of the owner was a graphic designer in San Diego and had done that logo originally for another bar in San Francisco and let him use it too. The mystery was finally solved. I told the bartender the name of the other bar that used the logo and went back to tell Janet that I had finally found the ending to the story of the duplicate logo.

We stayed long enough for me to have a second pint (Janet only had one because she was driving&#41 and to ask the bartender about their Mug Club. Mug Clubs seem to be popular in Connecticut: you pay $25 a year or so, and "lease" a numbered beer stein. When you buy a beer, you get it in your own mug for a discount. Pattaconk's waiting list was over a year long, and if it was closer to Hartford, I would have put down a deposit for the next available glass.

After we left, we decided to go home, drop off our new t-shirts and head to The Spigot, since it was Jim's turn to be on this Saturday. We made it there a little after 10pm and proceeded to look for Jim. He wasn't behind the bar. Since we were there, we decided to grab a couple of beers. When the bartender (a nice guy whose name we eventually found out was TJ&#41 brought the beers, we asked where Jim was.

The news wasn't good. Jim had been in a major car accident and broken his pelvis… then he started bleeding internally. Long story short, Jim is going to be out of commission for 10-12 weeks while he recovers. It was his second accident in less than a month… and now he is going to be bed-ridden for practically three months. The last time we talked to him, he was getting ready to go to his brother's wedding, and now he is recovering from surgery.