HEY, PEOPLE who want to open bars. You don't need to call your establishment a "social club" or "whiskey happening" or a "gathering of gins" or whatever. You can just call it a bar. Everyone is still onboard with bars. I haven't talked to anyone who was like, "I wish there was a place I could go buy alcohol and shout clipped sentences over some overly loud Johnny Cash songs that some dude is hoping you noticed that he put on the jukebox, but I hate homonyms."
I know it's fun to come up with weird names for shit. I would be a terrible father, but I still want to have kids so I can name them Shaquille. All of them. I understand the desire, but this whimsical bar-naming trend is starting to get out of hand. It's not that I dislike these places, either! Some of my favorite places to get ham-sandwiched have silly-ass names. The White Owl Social Club is outstanding. It's got cheap drinks, there's a dude who works there who looks like if Andrew WK was a wolfman, and it has a super fucking dope outdoor seating where you can get drinks and look at the stars and say shit that sounds super philosophical 'cuz you're smashed, but in reality is just "stars, though, huh?" But the White Owl Social Club doesn't sound like that place—it sounds like a paperback book about a bunch of plucky Connecticut businesswomen who get together once a week to solve crimes BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE OF THEIR OWN IS SUSPECTED AND IT GOES WAY DEEPER THAN EVEN CAROL THOUGHT AND WE ALL KNOW HOW PARANOID CAROL IS, GIVE IT A REST CAROL, YOU'LL WORRY YOURSELF INTO AN EARLY GRAVE.
You know what name I like? The Whiskey Soda Lounge. You know exactly what you're walking into. You don't even order drinks, you just walk up to the bar and say, "I could only be here for one thing," and you have your beverage. Plus, Whiskey Soda Lounge kind of sounds like the name of a Japanese rockabilly band, and that's fun for me.
From here on out let's stop calling anything a speakeasy, too. I don't want to go to a speakeasy, and sit there and listen to a dude who NEEDS me to know he loves the Rat Pack a whole bunch or how underrated Lillian Gish is.
This is why I smoke weed. It never has stupid names.