The Shitty Oak No More...aka Drinking With Old People

In Ottawa for a couple of days this week so Sheena rounded up a few of the troops on Sunday night for a little quaffing and conversation. Trying to come up with a central location and had mulled over the possibility of hitting Babylon later in the evening.

Did Elgin last week, and the Byward Market the wrong direction, so after some debate and discussion we agreed to go to the Royal Oak on Bank Street. Now, for Sheena's readers familiar with Ottawa, you will know that the Oak is a local chain of pubs. And that there are in fact 3 Royal Oaks on Bank Street. Within about 10 blocks of each other.

So as not to confuse people, over the years we have taken to call 'our' Oak "The Shitty Oak", as a way to distinguish it from the "Nice Oak" and the "New Oak". According to the official Royal Oak web site, it is the "Original" Oak, so maybe the indifferent service and bad food and ugly decor is part of the charm. Sheena hadn't been there since election night, so we agreed that it was time to go back.

A buddy from the Quebec side showed up first. Then Sheena's honourary blogmother. And then her blond companion who I think looks like Owen Wilson.

Now, Sheena has several good friends who are in their mid/late 40s and this night quickly fell into a disturbingly familiar pattern: Stubbornly unwilling to make the leap to bifocals, they find themselves unable to read the small print of the menu. This is not isolated to the Shitty Oak. She's had to put up with this nonsense at the Manx Pub, Woody's and the late lamented Bravo Bravo. Vanity, thy name is squint-induced crow's feet.

As a semi-joke, the blogmother asked our server - the bartender - if he had any reading glasses back there. He offered to check. We laughed.

Not just at the silly idea of having a stash of spectacles behind the bar, but at the fact that a real life server at the shitty Oak was being nice to us and providing friendly and competent customer service.

Sure enough, he came back with a handful of lost glasses. Left behind by their rightful owners. The blogmother tried them all on until she found a pair that allowed her to make an informed nacho decision. We were happy, though a little stunned.

The shitty Oak no more.

One pleasant, thoughtful, funny bartender had been enough to lift the stigma. Well, damn.. we said, now how are we going to know which of the Bank Street Oaks to meet at. The Oak That Used To Be The Shitty One, I suppose.