Fern bar is an American slang term for an upscale or preppy (or yuppie) bar or tavern catering to singles, usually decorated with ferns or other greenery, as well as such decor as fake Tiffany lamps. The phrase came into common regional usage in the late 1970s.
One of the first fern bars was the original T.G.I. Friday's on the corner of 63rd Street and First Avenue in a neighborhood on the Upper East Side of New York City, where many young single adults lived at the time. The founder, Alan Stillman, borrowed several thousand dollars from his mother, leased a saloon and remodeled it, converting the ambience to one that he thought might be attractive to young single women. The bar opened on March 15, 1965 and was soon copied by other restaurants in the neighborhood. [1]
Another early fern bar, [2] also thought to be the original birthplace of the Lemon Drop martini, was Henry Africa's in San Francisco, California. [3] [4] The bar opened in 1969 at Broadway and Polk Streets by out-of-work veteran Norman Hobday, who by his own account "took the opium-den atmosphere out of the saloons" in favor of "antique lamps and Grandma's living-room furniture." By some accounts Hobday copied the concept from another restaurant, Perry's, [5] which opened several months earlier and was made famous as a singles "meet market" by Armistead Maupin's novel, Tales of the City . [6]
Hobday closed the establishment in 1986, [7] and opened up Eddie Rickenbackers, [3] [8] another eclectic bar, the next year.
Typical drinks served included wine spritzers, lemon drop martinis, frozen daiquirís, Harvey Wallbangers, and piña coladas. [1] Franchises sometimes labeled "fern bars" include T.G.I. Friday's, [9] Bennigan's, and Houlihan's.
Fern bars were gathering places for well-dressed "upscale" young men and women, initially during the sexual revolution of the 1970s and later the yuppie era of the 1980s. [1] Fern bars were frequently talked of disparagingly as singles bars where individuals would go to hit on men or women for sexual hookups. This image was common in the 1980s despite the fact that many people attended these bars for after-work occasions, parties or in groups.
A bar, also known as a saloon, a tavern or tippling house, or sometimes as a pub or club, is a retail business that serves alcoholic beverages, such as beer, wine, liquor, cocktails, and other beverages such as mineral water and soft drinks. Bars often also sell snack foods, such as crisps or peanuts, for consumption on their premises. Some types of bars, such as pubs, may also serve food from a restaurant menu. The term "bar" refers to the countertop where drinks are prepared and served, and by extension to the overall premises.
A cosmopolitan, or, informally, a cosmo, is a cocktail made with vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and freshly squeezed or sweetened lime juice.
TGI Fridays Franchisor, LLC, doing business as TGI Fridays, is an American restaurant chain focusing on primarily American cuisine and casual dining. The restaurant's founder said the name stood for "Thank God It's Friday", although as of 2010 some television commercials for the chain have also made use of the phrase, "Thank Goodness It's Friday". TGI Fridays operates over 600 locations in 55 countries, including 233 in the United States.
Union Square is a 2.6-acre (1.1-hectare) public plaza bordered by Geary, Powell, Post, and Stockton Streets in downtown San Francisco, California. "Union Square" also refers to the central shopping, hotel, and theater district surrounding the plaza for several blocks. The area got its name because it was once used for Thomas Starr King rallies and support for the Union Army during the American Civil War, earning its designation as a California Historical Landmark.
The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, food and beverage services, event planning, theme parks, travel agency, tourism, hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, and bars.
The Hurricane cocktail is a sweet alcoholic drink made with rum, lemon juice, and either passion fruit syrup or fassionola. It is one of many popular drinks served in New Orleans. It is traditionally served in the tall, curvy hurricane glass.
Sweetwater Saloon was a bar and music venue located at 153 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, California, with a 30-year history of live musical performances by the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Jerry Garcia, The String Cheese Incident, John Lee Hooker and Carlos Santana. There were typically at least 4 to 5 musical acts booked per week making it a popular local hangout. Sweetwater Saloon also featured an open mike night on Mondays that occasionally featured surprise performances by well-known artists such as Gregg Allman, Train and others. Village Music, a nationally recognized independent record store also in Mill Valley held twice-yearly parties at Sweetwater by well-known musicians who were also Village Music store customers. A documentary film about Village Music, Sweetwater and the music community in Mill Valley,Village Music: Last of the Great Record Stores was released in 2012. After closing in 2007 it was reopened as Sweetwater Music Hall in 2012 by Bob Weir and his partners a few blocks away from its original location
A wine bar is a tavern-like business focusing on selling wine, rather than liquor or beer. A typical feature of many wine bars is a wide selection of wines available by the glass. Some wine bars are profiled on wines of a certain type of origin, such as Italian wine or Champagne. While many wine bars are private "stand-alone" establishments, in some cases, wine bars are associated with a specific wine retailer or other outlet of wine, to provide additional marketing for that retailer's wine portfolio. In countries where licensing regulations allow this, some wine bars also sell the wines they serve, and effectively function as a hybrid between a wine shop and a wine bar.
Jeremiah P. Thomas was an American bartender who owned and operated saloons in New York City. Because of his pioneering work in popularizing cocktails across the United States as well, he is considered "the father of American mixology". In addition to writing the seminal work on cocktails, Bar-Tender's Guide, Thomas displayed creativity and showmanship while preparing drinks and established the image of the bartender as a creative professional. As such, he was often nicknamed "Professor" Jerry Thomas.
The Washington Square Bar & Grill was a landmark restaurant adjoining Washington Square in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. Known widely as the Washbag, so named by columnist Herb Caen as a play on words, it was a favorite gathering place for a generation of writers, politicians, musicians, and social elite.
Maxwell's Plum was a bar at 1181 First Avenue, at the intersection with 64th Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. A 1988 New York Times article described it as a "flamboyant restaurant and singles bar that, more than any place of its kind, symbolized two social revolutions of the 1960s – sex and food". Owned by Warner LeRoy, it closed abruptly on July 10, 1988.
A breakfast martini is a marmalade cocktail with gin, marmalade, orange liqueur, and lemon juice, created by bartender Salvatore Calabrese.
A lemon drop is a vodka-based cocktail that has a lemony, sweet and sour flavor, prepared using vodka, triple sec, and fresh lemon juice. It has been described as a variant of, or as "a take on", the vodka martini, but is in fact closer to a white lady variant. It is typically prepared and served straight up – chilled with ice and strained.
Dan Scoggin is an American businessman and the person credited for expanding nationwide the first casual-theme restaurant, T.G.I. Friday's.
The Buena Vista is a café in San Francisco, California, credited with introducing Irish coffee to the United States in 1952. The Buena Vista Café originally opened in 1916 when the first floor of a boardinghouse was converted into a saloon. The current owners also operate the Trident in Sausalito.
Comstock Saloon is a historic saloon in San Francisco, California, located in San Francisco's North Beach. The building, since 1907, housed several different bars and owners. The predecessor being the San Francisco Brewing Company (1985–2012), which is the oldest microbrewery in San Francisco. The bar is named after Henry Comstock and for his Comstock Lode, and is currently owned by Jeff Hollinger and Jonny Raglin, both also bartenders for Absinthe Brasserie & Bar. The bar is preserving most of the building's history, including the interior of the building which has been remained unchanged.
Historic bars and saloons in San Francisco were some of the earliest businesses during the formation of the city. Many of the first businesses to spring up in San Francisco during the California Gold Rush era (1848–1855) supported the influx of new men, including bars and saloons, breweries, horse racing tracks, and others forms of entertainment.
Jū-Ni is an Omakase-style sushi restaurant located at 1335 Fulton Street in San Francisco, California founded by Geoffrey Lee and Tan Truong. It was Michelin-starred in 2017, and lost the star in 2022.
Garbo is a gay-friendly bar in Zona Romántica, Puerto Vallarta, in the Mexican state of Jalisco.
The craft cocktail movement is a social movement spurred by the cocktail renaissance, a period of time in the late 20th and early 21st century characterized by a revival and re-prioritization of traditional recipes and methods in the bar industry, especially in the United States. The renaissance was followed by innovation and new techniques, and the movement has spread globally, now forming part of global cuisine.
The menu consisted of easy-to-make mixed drinks that catered to unsophisticated palates by using creamy or sweet ingredients.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)