Savannah Pubs

My friend and I followed a rainstorm from Miami to Savannah. We’d planned on continuing on to Charleston, but decided it was wiser to wait out the storm where we were rather than follow it up the coast. Plus we liked Savannah. So our one night stay turned into a three night stay. Since it was raining for the majority of our time there, we had to find indoor activities. Due to our general dislike of museums, art galleries and touristy shops, we settled on hanging out in pubs. Luckily there was a pub plethora in Savannah.Our first night began at Moon River Brewing Company. We sat at the bar and had fried green tomatoes (which were good! They tasted like fried onions, but juicier), crab cakes and beer. We especially liked this place because the bartender spent most of his time bitching to us about his other customers. In between commiserating with him we learned where we should eat pizza (Vinnie Van Go-Go's), where we should hang out the next day (Bull Street), and the best place to watch Monday Night Football.He told us to watch football at a bar up the street called Wild Wing. Thinking he had directed us to a Buffalo Wild Wings, we dismissed the suggestion (we can go to b-dub’s at home, thank you very much). However, when time came to watch the game the next night we followed the crowd to Wild Wing Café. The wings were fine and the spinach artichoke was above average, but the game festivities were the real highlight.The folks at Wild Wings host a Monday Night Football Bingo session for each game. Bingo cards feature some football activities (RB goes 10-15 yards, QB sac, Point scored after touchdown), some fan highlights (“strahan teeth” “hot skanky chic,” “fanatical fan,” “shirtless moron”) and other during-game bonuses (“erectile dysfunction commercial”). A guy narrates the game via microphone so everyone is on the same page on what plays to cross off and what counts as a hot skanky chic. The first three winners get a bucket of beers, and the game starts over at halftime. As someone who meticulously keeps track of the pitch count during baseball games and player fouls during basketball, I like paperwork with my sports. Football bingo was exactly what had been missing in my pigskin appreciation. Blue crayon in hand, I enthusiastically crossed off bingo squares as the Detroit Lions trounced the Chicago Bears.  There was no football the following night, so we went to Molly MacPherson's Scottish Pub and Grill. As a Scottish pub, they obviously had soccer on the big screens. Luckily, there was no haggis on the menu, so we had two rounds of spinach artichoke dip and then decided to join a group of tourists on a haunted pub crawl.There are a couple haunted pup crawl options in Savannah. The pub tour that we joined was through Cobblestone Tours. It was $10 and actually started at the Moon River Brewing Company.The haunted pub crawl was pretty fun, if only for the other pub crawlers with us. Among the crowd of ten increasingly drunk people, we met a pair of loud Canadian moose-hunting/ice-fishing/curling-enthusiasts, and an adorable newlywed couple from Huntsville, Alabama.As we ventured from Molly MacPherson's to Pour Larry’s to Hang Fire (37 Whitaker Street, Savannah, GA 31401. Call 912-443-9956), we learned a bit about Savannah. First and most importantly, we learned that Savannah allows it’s revelers to drink outside. Yay! I thought that was only legal in Las Vegas. Plastic beer glasses in hand, we stood outside of pubs as our period-costumed tour guide regaled us with stories about fake-suicides-gone-wrong (in the apartments above Molly’s), illegal shipments of African slaves (who were imprisoned at what is now Pour Larry’s), and Hang Fire, the place where one-legged/one-armed/pregnant strippers went to dance their final dances. The tour guide’s funniest one-liner was his quip about Savannah Queen Paula Deen: “she thinks she invented the word y’all and she wants to kill you with butter.” On a non pub-related note, Paula Deen’s gooey butter cake is fabulous.  We did not see any ghosts on our haunted tour though. No siren spirits sang through the hanging trees, and we witnessed no paranormal activities in the rain showers and thunderstorms. Maybe we should come back to Savannah closer to Halloween.In the meantime, here’s to pub crawls, drinking outside, above ground cemeteries, and the most haunted town in America.

Cheers to Savannah, y’all!