A Yaletown denizen who should know claims that Urban Fare the hip and enticing food emporium (177 Davie Street, Downtown South, 604-975-7550) is the best singles bar in the city. Order a
well-chosen wine by the glass (and, perhaps, a good, inexpensive meal), and sidle up to one of the working types in for a light lunch or for a post-office pickup (beverage-wise). Another option is Joe Fortes (777 Thurlow Street, Downtown, 604-669-1940), although you may have to burrow your way through the crush to the u-shaped bar.
A civilized spot is the wine bar at the 900 West restaurant on the main floor ofthe Hotel Vancouver (900 West Georgia Street, Down-town, 604-669-9378). Lean up against the bar with, say, a Campari and soda and you’re sure to meet someone. But we’re getting into fancy schmoozing here; a similar choice is the plush, lush Bacchus Lounge (845 Hornby Street, Downtown, 604-608-5319).
Racier sports bars include the omnivorous Shark Club (i8o West Georgia Street, Downtown, 604-687-4275) and Malone’s (2202 Cornwall Avenue, Kitsilano, 604-737-7777; and 608 West Pender Street, Downtown, 604-684-9977).
Malone’s in Kits, with a large patio, seems to attract an almost exclu¬sively BMW/Jeep crowd. Just don’t park your expensive vehicle in the single, prohibited space on the north side of Cornwall Avenue, immediately west of Yew Street. Buster’s Towing makes a fortune from these otherwise-invincible bar-hoppers, picking up their vehi¬cles one by one from the same road slot — almost non-stop.
The buzz on the patio-porch of Urban Well (see “Martinis”) on a nice night is something to experience. Inside, you’ll find a very Kits martini menu, food, and maybe a little standup comedy.
When you get a little older — say forty or fifty, or even sixty or seventy — you can cross the street (carefully — lawyer-driven Harleys whip up here in high-performance mode) and feel at home at the ever-crowded Jazz haunt called Rossini’s (1525 Yew Street, Kitsilano, 604-737-8080).
Back at the younger end of the drinking spectrum, and with history of pushing the city bar-rules envelope and annoying the neighbor-hood, is Elwood’s (3145 West Broadway, Kitsilano, 604-736-4301). This small slice of rusticana looks a bit like the galley of an i8th-century sailing ship (manned by rogues). I thought that martinis contained vermouth and gin or vodka, but Elwood’s “Sicilian Kiss” blends Southern Comfort with amaretto — so there you go.
On a gentler note, newcomers to the city, or locals on the lookout for new faces, might try the Billy Bishop Branch ofthe 176 Canadian Legion (1407 Laburnum Street, just north of Cornwall Avenue, Kitsilano, 604-738-4142). It boasts, I’m told, a loyal, social crowd. The lounge at the Yale Hotel (1300 Granville Street, Downtown, 604-681-9253) has been hosting blues and related musicians — and single people — for nigh on as long as this city has been going, and its devotees are legion. For a bit of true-blue — if shopworn Vancouver, this is the place.
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