Getting Wasted on the Cheap

When you’ve only got $20 and you refuse to just pick up a couple eight-packs of pilsner to slam back alone on a bench in the rain, it’s time to head for East Van (or at least Mid). Westward lies an ocean of neatly-pressed pants, and douchebags with martinis. The downtown Granville strip is a cesspool of shitty clubs for the in-town-on-business set, a pretty solid time if your idea of a good scene is 5,000 identical haircuts and $10 cover charges. But for the simple man who needs only a pint, a stool, and a million stories written in grime, here’s a lesson in proper Vanshitty boozing.

THE CAMBIE (300 Cambie St.) Every Vancouverite has at some point blitzed out at the Cambie, that bizarre convergence of the Hastings Pot Block, touristy Gastown, and Heroin Central. For variety, you’ll find your rockers and punkers, collegiate daytime alkies, foreign youngsters (there’s a hostel upstairs), thugs, iron workers, slut machines, the whole bit. There’s always cheap swill and $3.25 Moosehead bottles on weekends and you’ll never go a night without hearing “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” 

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EAST HASTINGS HELLHOLES (Funky Winker Beans/Savoy/Balmoral/Regent/etc.) If you really want to be an ultra-cheap scuzzball, there’s a slew of Hastings hotel bars leftover (and not cleaned) since the strip’s glory days, prior to its reinvention as an open-air drug market and boardinghouse for schizophrenics. The rules of entry: Don’t be an idiot (no use getting stabbed by a crackhead), recognize that you’re an outsider, shut up, and enjoy your $1.50 glass of urine. The Balmoral has domestic bottles for $2.75, which, for obvious reasons, is infinitely safer than draft. It’s also got an incredible décor, including plastic totem poles, CDs dangling from the ceiling, and vinyl tacked to the walls to help spark things up. Don’t go there on Welfare Wednesday unless you really know what you’re doing. I’m serious. 

Of course if you need a break from all the rampant downers, here are a few islands of refinement that don’t try to pass backlit flat-screens off as class. 

LUCY MAE BROWN’S (862 Richards St.) Lucy Mae’s is one of the classiest joints in the city. They’ve got this sneaky basement cocktail lounge that makes you feel like you’re an in-the-know hepcat in the middle of prohibition. If you’ve got lots of money, a date who you’re sincerely trying to bang, and zero interest in rock ‘n’ roll, bring her here.

MORRISSEY’S IRISH PUB (1227 Granville St.) At the ass-end of the Granville strip is a nice little Guinness and Kilkenny hook-up. Decent live venue too, when they feel like it. Cushy little booths, a welcoming décor, and a good likelihood of contact with other reputable human beings.

THE FRINGE CAFÉ (3124 Broadway) One of the few appealing bars in that huge and terrifying upper-middle-class clone-zone west of Granville. 

PUBLIC LOUNGE (3289 Main St.) As is the Main Street way, the food here comes in supersmall portions, but they’ve got a nice selection of drafts and the prices are OK. It’s small as fuck though, so don’t bring a crowd.

SUBEEZ (891 Homer St.) For those who enjoy ambient music pumped through a huge, grey concrete room with 30-foot ceilings, local art on the walls and Jesus candles on the tables, welcome to a place you will enjoy going to and then being at. Great food and good service, just don’t sit within eyesight of the life-size naked concrete man sculpture—his dangling junk will distract you all night.

FIVE POINT (3124 Main St.) Probably the best patio spot on Main Street. Usually busy, but that’s OK because the people are for the most part tolerable, unless there’s a hockey game on. Then it’s best to be avoided (but that pretty much goes for any bar with a TV).