g: Greenhouse Tavern

AIN'T NUTHIN BUT A "G" THANG
Thought a little shout out to the Dr. Dre single seemed appropriate to get us going with our G bar. And, for the record, this little ditty is classified as "g-funk" or "gangsta rap." Can you believe that song was released in 1992?! Oye vey.

Anyways... our G thang for #CLEabc turned out to be Greenhouse Tavern located on E 4th Street downtown. Owned and operated by local chef Jonathon Sawyer (you may have heard of him), this place has quickly become a Cleveland favorite. It is the first certified "green" restaurant in the state and is also considered a "gastropub." Dropping G's all over this biznitch! (Okay, gangsta officially out of system. Promise.)

Our G adventure started on Greenhouse Tavern's rooftop patio, truly awesome, warm weather spot. And if you've ever seen "aerial views" of E 4th St. pop up in your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram feed...9 times out of 10 that pic was taken from this patio.

GIN, GHT & GENESEE
We have to make a small confession. We kind of fumbled on our first drinks. Connie started out with the "Not Your Dad's Vodka Tonic" and Mel got excited because she saw a Steven's Point pale ale in a can.

We recovered though. Connie moved on to a gin drink (Swingin' 75) and Mel ordered a GHT Smartees. Both are cocktails special to Greenhouse.

Then we spied green-labeled bottles of Genesee beer. Don't ask why it took us so long to make that perfect connection...

Observe Alexa's stellar iPhone photo skillz

EASY BEING GREEN
Once we made the G connection with green... Mel suddenly realized she was wearing a neon green bracelet the whole time and Connie conveniently had green in her dress. And a green iPhone cover! We documented it.

GETTING GROUPIES
We quickly realized our initial goal of increasing our group by one at each bar was a little ambitious. Good intentions, but tough when you're as last minute as us. That being said, we did have two newbies join us! Alexa (aka Cleveland's a Plum) and Tim hopped aboard for our wild adventure.

GREAT BARTENDER
Don didn't really know what to think about us at first. But once he realized how serious we are about our little pet project AND as we started getting crazy with the "G" drinks, Don came around. Even posed for this pic with a bottle of Goslings dark rum.

Not only that, Don created a special "G" shot just for #CLEabc deemed "Gosling's Storm." A little Gosling's dark rum, a little ginger beer...add a splash of lime and voila! Very gratifying.

GRUB
Item of note, Greenhouse Tavern does not serve food on the rooftop patio. (One thing we wish they would revisit.) We were really digging our bar seats and hanging with Don, but we surrendered to our need for food and grabbed a table inside. Here's a nifty view walking down from the rooftop looking down at the restaurant bar.

The nice host people sat us at a window seat just inside the front door. This made for some of the best people watching of ever.

Somehow the encased glass area backed with old VHS movies lining the walls behind us also created some sort of echo chamber. Or we were just really that loud... either way, super fun. And look! Ghostbusters!

GRAVY, GARLIC and SALAD?
Before we walked down to the restaurant, Don the bartender told us two things we had to try: Gravy frites and the chicken wings. We indulged. Gravy frites = awesome. Chicken wings = out of this world! Seriously, fall of the bone type of amazingness. (And there was garlic...meeting the "G" requirement.)

Alexa stuck with the "G" theme with the Grilled Ohio Lamb Burger while Connie had a salad. Don't ask. She was already reprimanded.

GREENHOUSE PRO TIP
One of the most unique and fun things about Greenhouse Tavern is the kitchen coffee. Yeah, doesn't sound too fancy but basically this means you buy the kitchen a round of canned beer. That's not even the best part. They let you take the beer down to the peeps in the kitchen equipped with A LARGE BELL! We scooped up our tray and rang the bell all the way from our seats down the steps to the kitchen (sorry to those other patrons). The kitchen staff greeted us with whoops, hollers and big grins. They even took a second to snap this pic.

More Plum photography

When you visit Greenhouse, get in the spirit and take care of the staff. You'll be glad you did!

GARAGE BAR... oh wait
After dinner we spontaneously decided to head over to the soft opening of Nano Brew, Sam McNulty's new spot in Ohio City. We weren't sure if we were going to mention this in our G post, but we'll allow it since technically the bar used to start with a G. Yeah... it's a stretch but it's our bar crawl and we don't care.

The atmosphere is pretty cool, definitely ditched the old Garage Bar biker vibe and we're excited to have another great patio option. Unfortunately, their own brews weren't ready for consumption yet so we continued with our Genesee trend. We were also fortunate enough to have a convo with the brewmaster himself, Andy Tveekrem. This place is definitely worth checking out.

SAVE THE DATE
Yes, we know that "H" comes next in the alphabet, but we're already planning an epic LMNOP. After consulting with our new groupies, we settled on Saturday, Oct. 6 to tackle LMNOP all in one night AND we're getting a limo to haul our drunk asses around. (Gotta be safe kids!) This means we can go anywhere we want... so let the LMNOP suggestions begin!

We also haven't forgotten H. Our list includes: Hodges, Happy Dog, Hotz, Hooples & Horsehoe Casino. Where should we go? Any favorites?

f: Flat Iron

FLAT IRON in the FLATS... oh my
Oh, East Bank of the Flats. You really used to be something. Remember the concerts at the Odeon? Remember the Beach Club? And who could forget when there was a Dick's Last Resort down there? It sure has been awhile, Flats. The GoodTime III still tries to show off your nonexistent splendor...hopefully one day soon you'll be back in business.

Despite the lackluster state of the East Bank, choosing the Flat Iron for our F bar was the obvious choice once we went through our list of options. It was a day full of F, as we stopped by Walnut Wednesday for lunch and enjoyed the cuisine from the Fired Up Taco Truck.

Special welcome to Tom for braving the trek to Flat Iron with two chicks. His first of hopefully many appearances!

NOT AS CREEPY AS WE THOUGHT
The first thing we noticed was that the atmosphere inside of the bar was remarkably different from the outside. Not much going on out there, but once you get through those doors it felt very comfortable and inviting. We found out that they opened in 1910 and they still have the original bar!

THE BEER
Connie desperately tried to order a beer that started with an F, but despite the fact that the cooler had a good variety and was alphabetized (a perfect detail for us to notice on our alphabetical bar crawl), not a single one could be found.

No problem, she started with The Wright Pils from Great Lakes while Mel took advantage of the $6 Bud Light pitcher special, which we shared as the evening went on.

THE PEEPS
Now might be a good time to mention the gentlemen that we encountered when we walked up to the bar. A group of four guys, all in Indians garb who told us that they had been there since 11 a.m. and had gone back and forth to the Tribe game for a couple of innings at a time. They spent the majority of the night trying to guess our first names...then we guessed theirs...then we had to guess middle names...and then that ran out even our PETS' names! It was a really fun game. Even the bartenders joined in!

SPEAKING OF THE BARTENDER
Frank.. err.. we mean Dave was great! He was super friendly and even answered to Frank all night so we'd have an F named bartender.

We asked him to mix us up a shot that started with an F so we all joined in on a Froot Loop...looked like a strawberry milkshake but tasted just like a bowl of that crazy toucan's breakfast. And yes, we even invited one of the crazy Indians dudes to have a shot.

THE FOOD
Special tip, Wednesday is forty-five cent wing night! Sticking with the F tradition, we couldn't help but order some with the special Flat Iron wing sauce, as well as some Flat Iron Fries to go along with them.

Apparently their specialty is the Angel's Lake Perch because they get their perch fresh from the local fish market across the street every morning. Will definitely have to stop by this place again to try more from their menu. Everything sounded delicious!

PUTTING IN TIME

As we hung at the bar, we noticed a few plaques placed in front of a few different seats at the bar. Ironically, Mel sat in front of the plaque for Franklin. And how did Franklin get this honor you ask? By "putting in time." According to his plaque, he has been a regular at Flat Iron since 1984! Turns out, he's a local artist and will sit at the end of the bar some nights and draw on cocktail napkins. We tried to wait so we could meet Franklin, but unfortunately he didn't show.

A LOT OF ALLITERATION
One random thing. We couldn't stop saying words that started with F. We said so many that we even kept a list—it ended up being pretty long. Check this out:

Fun

Fried

First 

Fourth

Flatiron French Fries

Food

Fresh

Fffin

Freakin -> ala Frank

Five 

Facebook Feed 

Frankenmuth

Fire 

Forgetting 

Fantastic 

Freebies 

Frankly 

Family 

Flats 

Flavor 

Fox 

Found 

Funky 

Fancy 

Foo Fighters (Played on the jukebox by Tom. He's seen them FIVE times) 

Fingers 

Fabulous 

Fruity 

Favorite 

Free

Finish

Fart

We'll let your imagination determine how you think our conversation went with these words.

PARTING GIFT
Dave (aka Frank) gave us SHAMROCK CLE coozies to take home - awesome!




After dinner, Connie had to shuffle off to a volleyball game at Whiskey Island, Mel to Cleveland Browns Stadium (for Family Night .. another F!), but both left the Flat Iron agreeing that it was a successful F happy hour!

Now, onto G...where will #CLEabc take us next? Leave a comment, tweet #CLEabc... we need help. Our G list is not all that impressive.

d + e : Duck Island Club + Edison's

This is the first official bar that neither Mel nor Connie had ever been to. That being said, majority of our friends told us they have never even heard of it. So far, we were most excited to visit this bar.

On to Duck Island Club for #CLEabc! It's just a duck... chilling on a beach... under a palm tree. Who doesn't want to hang out here?

The most awesome thing about this place is that you would totally miss it if you weren't purposefully looking for it. They don't have a huge "Duck Island Club" sign, which is cool for peeps that love hidden treasures, but maybe not so cool for their marketing efforts. We have a feeling they like to keep it on the down low.

Marked with a handwritten sign that says OPEN in black marker on a red piece of paper, we stepped through the door unsure of what to expect. Immediately we felt we may be a little unwelcome coming in our business attire straight after work, but we were so incredibly wrong. We may have been the only patrons in the joint at 6 p.m. on a Wednesday, but they were extremely inviting and just fun to hang out with.

BEERS!

What we drank...
Happy hour at Duck Island Club means $1 off everything. No matter what you order. Connie had some PBR on draft and Mel got a Magic Hat. Three pints for only $6... not too shabby.


For our token "beers and menu" pic.. we had to improvise. Check out the artwork on this flyer! We may have to make it back for 80s Ladies Night at some point.

In addition to our brewskies... bartender Carrie (we'll get to her in a bit) offered to make us some house shots. (This is becoming a trend we could get used to.) A vodka fan, she put together a mixture of some sort of pink deliciousness. Bottoms up!!

The BARTENDER!

Carrie is eccentric, relaxed, cool and hip all rolled into one. Pretty sure she could spark up a conversation with anyone. AND she had PBR buttons... hard to top that.

We also learned that Carrie spins vinyl. How cool is that?! Unfortunately, she explained to us that they've had some complaints in the neighborhood and the sounds of the vinyl is too loud. While we were there, her friend was helping to transfer some of her vinyl to digital so she could continue her mixes. Sad... would love to hear her spin some vinyl one day.

CHILLIN OUT, MAXIN, RELAXING ALL COOL
Duck Island Club prides themselves on being a place where you feel like you are getting drinks served to you in your own living room. True, but you must have a kick ass living room if you have an old school Pac-Man game and skee ball.

This place has an amazing hip, artsy vibe. Just check out these vintage booths in the back room! And yep, that's an old cigarette machine in the corner too.

That's not all... there is even a patio.

And we haven't even talked about the disco ball against the exposed brick.

Clearly, you can see why this is a perfect Tremont destination. They mentioned being open and participating in the Tremont Art Walk and even bringing back mixed tape parties! We almost don't even want to share this place with others. We plan to go back...often.


KID AT 2104
We would be remiss if we didn't warn you about the naked kid running around the yard in the house next door to the bar. As we walked up, he ran up to the fence from out of nowhere and yelled at us... causing Mel to scream out loud. We kept walking... Then our first (and probably only) groupie, Andrea, joined us. The first words out of her mouth were talking about some naked kid asking her about his stick... um.... yeah, watch out for him.


The FOOD!
The only bad thing about Duck Island Club (besides the creepy neighbors, but that's part of the adventure) is the fact there is no food. They do have a nice assortment of nuts (no comment), but that just wasn't going to cut it. We failed to find a quick D place to run to for dinner (and Domino's doesn't deliver to Duck Island... we checked) so we opted for an early E -- Edison's Pub.

Not sure you can consider yourself a Clevelander if you've never been to Edison's Pub for some brews and pizza. (Well... at least brews). This is the place to go late night in Tremont after having a few (or lots) at a local watering hole.

We quickly grabbed a medium pizza with pepperoni & banana peppers... yum!! They even add a side of honey to dip your crust in. (Waaay better than it sounds, just ask Connie.)

And we just love their beer bottle table tops. Wonder how long it takes to make one of these bad boys.

This probably won't be our last visit to Tremont. We still have 22 letters in the alphabet to go. Which brings us to our next topic...

BRING ON E (... or F)

Not sure where we should head for our full out E adventure. Our list so far includes:

• Euclid Tavern
• E Grille
• Eagles' Nest
• Eastside Saggys

Or maybe we'll just consider Edison's our E and call it day. On to F??

Help... where should #CLEabc go?

Until then... CHEERS!!

c: Clevelander

Okay, so we deserve a little bit of heckling. Yes... we did visit our C bar five days ago and yes we are just now publishing the blog post. Let's get past it. Anyways...on to the Clevelander!

This is the CLEVELAND Alphabetical Bar Crawl so where else would we go for C? This place is the epitome of the Cleveland sports fan (well, except for the Muni Lot on Browns game day), so we had to go when the Indians were at home. Not sure there is any other way to experience this bar.  

THE PEEPS
Special shout out to the Aber clan, Andrea (@andreaaber) Bob (@AberInTheCleve) and Erica (@ericaaber) for bringing their friends and participating in the bar crawl. They probably just came because they were all going to the game, but we like to think that #CLEabc is just that popular. Yeah.... that's what we'll tell ourselves.

ON THE PATIO
When we first started, we decided we always have to sit at the bar. Well, the patio definitely suited our needs better that day. There was too many of us and it was too crowded pregame, but it worked out. We were right beside the outdoor bar that supplied us with plenty of tallboys. Seriously, we probably could not have built this beer pyramid indoors...

CELEBRITY IN OUR MIDST
Ladies and gentlemen, we had our first celebrity join us for #CLEabc. That's right, our very own celebrity bat girl!

Here's the story: When Erica was 8, she was selected to be an Indians celebrity bat girl (anyone else remember when they did that?). Sponsored by Milk Duds no less... today they would be accused of making kids fat. Anyways, Erica got to meet Jim Thome and even took a picture with him. When she recently uncovered this shirt, she also tried to find the picture because she wanted to send it to him. Maybe get an autograph. Unfortunately the picture was lost forever and now all she has as proof is this t-shirt. Honestly, she should be proud she can still fit into a t-shirt she had when she was 8 years old! (How many of us can say that?)

LMNOP
We've come to learn that people LOVE to give us ideas for bars that fit the letters we have left. At this point, we still have a long ways to go so it turns into quite a long conversation. This time... we came across an idea we cannot refuse. LMNOP... all in 1 night... in Lakewood! That's right folks, we're going on a #CLEabc bender. (Maybe we can even talk the 50 bars in 50 weeks Lakewood dude to join us.) Stay tuned for more details!

Also, spoiler alert... we may have to hit up Rusty Barrel in Westlake for R. The story we were told is just too good to not consider it.

OKAY REALLY... THIS SHOULD BE ABOUT THE BAR 
Once the rest of the crew headed to the game, Connie, Mel & Mike headed inside to sit at the bar and get some grub. FYI, if you want to order food before you head to the game, it's usually a 30 minute wait. Either get there early or plan on eating some peanuts and Cracker Jacks at Progressive Field.

After the game crowd clears out, there is plenty of space to walk right up and get served. Once we sat down, we quickly spotted the chalkboard beer menu. Summer Love from Victory Brewing Company called to us ... so we obeyed. (GREAT summer beer.)

The FOOD!
In honor of our C bar... we decided to order menu items that begin with the letter C. It wasn't too hard. Their menu is very Cleveland-centric and caters to the passionate Clevelanders. Where else will you find menu items like "The Bernie, Bernie" and "The Dutch Oven"?

If you didn't know, Clevelander is known for their burgers (hence the above pic). Mel ordered the Comacho burger while Connie indulged in the Clevelander wrap. For the record, they're not kidding when they talk about their burgers. They are amazeballs!

The BARTENDER!

Unfortunately our bartender's name this week did not start with C (we got lucky with Brendan at Becky's last time), but Tara was absolutely adorable and we love her. That's her... on the left. Our first girl bartenders!

Honestly, it only makes sense that a sports bar has cute girls slinging drinks. Pretty sure they bank on game day. Who wouldn't tip these lovely ladies well? (If you're still wondering, the chick on the right is Alex... the only other bartender brave enough to take a pic for our blog.)

COOKIE DOUGH VODKA WHAT?!
As we're chilling, enjoying some summer love and stuffing our faces, one of the bartenders walks by with these chocolaty looking delicious shots. After further investigation from the help of Tara, we learned that these mysterious concoctions were called Chocolate Frosting shots. MADE WITH PINNACLE COOKIE DOUGH VODKA! Of course we ordered some immediately. Tara was nice enough to learn how to make them for us...

The TUNES!

As you've learned, we are huge advocates of TouchTunes. Mel quickly went to her TouchTunes app to see if she could take control of the jukebox, but it just wouldn't let us check in. Mel went to the wall unit to see what was up, and upon inspection, some guys let us use the rest of their credits to play some songs.

Prior to this point, most of the music was Phish, Push Stars, Dave Matthews, etc. This crowd was a little too classy for "Call Me Maybe," so we opted for Rita Ora "How We Do", Rihanna "Cheers (Drink To That)" ... a little Lady Gaga. Our new friends may have regretted the decision to let us use the rest of their credits...

THE SWEET SPOT
All in all, we determined that Clevelander is definitely the place to be during an Indians game. Yeah, most folks love to hang out pre or post game, but during the game you get a great seat at the bar with a perfect view of the TV, great service, fast food and beers. Can't really beat it.

The only bad part of the night? Our beloved Tribe lost to the Orioles 10-2. But you know what? More beers and shots were just an arm's reach away. There's no cutoff in the 7th inning, and we're surrounded by friends to help drown our sorrows. We should be used to this by now... right?

Couldn't have said it better ourselves....