Last night was a hellish night at the Torondo. Because it won the Bay Guardian’s Best of the Bay award for “Best Bar” last Wednesday, it has been packed by all of the bridge-and-tunnel yuppies since then. However, Janet and I were lucky, and we were able to get our favorite seats quite quickly (we got one of them immediately. The second seat opened up after 2 beers). I discovered a great beer by Anchor (of course, it would have to be an Anchor beer) called the Small Beer, which is a second pressing of one of my favorite barleywines, Old Foghorn. As the night went on, Maury, another regular sitting next to us said to me, “You seem to be more of a colleague [to Johnny the Bartender] than a customer.” This is one of the nicest thing that anyone has said to me. It means a lot to me that some noticed that I am no longer just some schlub that orders a beer and throws down his cash… I’ve become part of the fabric and the personality of the bar.

Tonight, we will be at Marcus’ Evil Doers party, so we will not have a Barfly update for 8/2/98.

Since it was big news that the Toronado won the Best Bar award, Tad the Doorman penciled in “and they have the nicest doormen” underneath the little blurb about the bar in every single copy of the Bay Guardian that was stacked at the door. And they do have the nicest doormen. Also the nicest bartenders. Even if Johnny DID have all of his bleach-blonde hair cut off. Now the little remaining hair he does have has been returned to the shortest, plainest brown ever to sit on someone’s head. I will miss the hair.