The Coffin Bar

On Friday the 13th, we drove to Lancaster, PA for the grand opening of The Coffin Bar.  We had been waiting for this place to open for almost a year after first hearing about its construction.  We had high hopes this would be something dark and interesting, with amazing cocktails and food.  We wanted it to be a bar for Halloween and horror fans.  

We left work early and headed off, playing the new Halloween at High Noon album the entire way.  We got there right before 4pm and figured the place would be pretty empty.  It wasn't.  Every table and every spot at the coffin-shaped bar were taken.  I asked the host how long the wait would be and she said a couple had just gotten up to leave.  She told us Table 13 would be ready in a minute.  Table 13, on Friday the 13th.  It was kind of perfect.

The menu was impressive and the cocktails were phenomenal.  We started with some shots:  The Heaven shot (blue and smooth and mildly sweet), and the Hell shot (dark and bitter and spicy).  The Beet Red cocktail is served with a small pickled quail egg.  It was stellar.  

The food was terrific, and the service was fantastic.  Can't wait to return.  We're definitely going to be regulars here.

Here's their IG.

The Vortex

Oh, to be able to dine at a place with a giant skull looming above.

Click below for the Vortex's IG...

And here for their food menu.

A Lambertville Halloween: Part II

100 days until Halloween...

In this blog post from June, I talked about a trip to Lambertville, New Jersey in late October.  We discovered that Halloween Town was a real place, where the High Holiday was being celebrated everywhere you looked.  After a packed day of slowly working our way to see the Lambertville Halloween House, we stopped at a small local tavern to wait for the sun to set so we could see the House in all of its glowing glory.  We quickly dubbed the tavern the Halloween III Bar, as it felt like we could bump into Dr. Challis at any minute ('Drinking and Doctoring' was kindof his thing).

This bar was amazing.  Quaint and Old School and decked out in so many wonderful Halloween decorations.  Classic Halloween decorations... stuff I remembered from my childhood.  This was the Friday before Halloween so the atmosphere in there was exactly like a Halloween party.  They were playing all of the usual classics as well and The Monster Mash never sounded so good.  We drank our drinks and wondered what it'd be like a few blocks away at that strange, elegant House.

As we walked out into the chilly Autumn air, you could tell something significant was happening.  The night air was charged with a feeling that we had somehow mixed up the dates and this was, in fact, Halloween night.  It felt like prime Trick-or-Treating hours... there were children in costumes and excited people everywhere heading in the direction of the House.  But then we noticed that the Lambertville Halloween House was just a voice in a choir.  There were blocks and blocks of decorated homes.  So many lights.  Tons of unique decor and props.  So much Halloween.

We asked a resident walking her dog if this is how it always was...and if the town was heavily into Christmas as much as Halloween.  Her answer was a little on the glorious side:  she said "We really just get into Halloween here...  Christmas, not so much." 

Amazing.  A town devoted to the Love of Halloween.

Below are some photos from that magical evening.  A night that made you feel like a kid on Halloween... excited that there were hours ahead of you, and there were tons of homes waiting for you.  Homes with pumpkins and witches and ghosts and bones and every haunted creepy thing.  And on this one night, they really didn't care that it wasn't Halloween just yet.  

Lancaster Weekend

Antique markets, rooftop cocktails, and a shadowy social club.