MEH: Bar Louie Anaheim and Anaheim 300 Bowling

my friends DoGre and AlPa and i were looking for a place to have a drink. in our quest to find a bar, can you believe, we were THE FIRST customers in Bar Louie at the Anaheim Garden Walk? in fact, at 6pm, they were having a staff meeting, which we walked in on...so we had to kill time at the Anaheim 300 bowling lane.

Anaheim 300 had crap music but cool atmosphere, and a fairly friendly bartender and staff. it's eerie to be in any establishment where the staff outnumbers the number of customers...but it's also eerie to be in a bowling alley where there is no characteristic ==CRASH!== of bowling pins in the background. drinks were decent, but expensive. they had a menu, but we decided to pass cos we were going to go back and grab some food at Bar Louie...

Bar Louie had crappier music, and overly-friendly employees. with websites and local newspapers originally declaring a June/July 2008 start, months and months of delays led to this evening's rather soft opening. in fact, one bartender made a statement as to how we were 'popping his cherry' as his first drinks customers. gross.

silverware and menus abounded on each table, but SURPRISE! there is no food being served until next week. also, i liked seeing the Stone brewery coasters on each counter but SURPRISE AGAIN! there was no Stone beer brew anywhere on the menu.

the few other customers stopping by appeared to be friends of the working employees, or perhaps they were off-duty employees themselves. in any case, they were all chatting away amongst themselves like it was a big ol' get-together. with us sitting in a corner booth.

neither bar offered any drinks specials, nor any bonus for us being the only and/or first customers of the evening.

yeah, this entire area was pretty freaking dead on a Wednesday night. but if you go to the Anaheim Gardenwalk, you'll see the potential of the place, which is reminiscent of the Hollywood and Highland setup of upscale boutiques mixed with bougie-ass chain restaurants (in this case: Cheesecake Factory, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., California Pizza Kitchen). there are a lot of pretty lights and blah blah blah.

there's even a totally independent but blatant rip-off of Jamba Juice who grants parking validation. but whatever you do, beware of the parking! none of the elevators take you to all the levels you want to go to. most of the shopping area is ABOVE the parking. and the signs are not very helpful. oh, and the garage is quite conducive to one's re-enacting the parking garage episode of Seinfeld, whether you are drunk or not...but if you are drunk, pay very close attention to where you started and where you want to go or you'll never get there.