Montbleu Casino
P.O. Box 5800
55 Highway 50
Lake Tahoe, Nevada 89449
800-648-3353
www.montbleuresort.com
Parking: We walked, but I assume there’s a lot?
Daily, 24/7; $1.50 PBR, $3 Domestic Bottles, $4 Import Bottles, $4 House Wine, $4 Well Drinks, $5 Call Drinks
I’ll be frank; I’m not a big fan of casinos. I’ve never seen the draw in spending a long period of time inside these buildings that do everything they can to make you not realize how much time you’ve spent in them – no clocks, clearly unmarked exits, etc. I also don’t love the smoky air, but will admit I’m slightly enchanted by the constant electronic dinging & whirring sounds of the machines. Kinda hypnotic, which, I guess, is kinda the point.
On our last night in Lake Tahoe, after seeing THE SOCIAL NETWORK at Heavenly Village Cinemas, Amanda & I ventured across the State Line to Nevada where we visited Montbleu Casino’s Café del Soul, recommended for their diner food by an old pal of JG’s & mine. During my pre-trip research, I was happy to discover that Montbleu ran a 24-7 Happy Hour at all their bar & restaurant locations on the first floor.
When we arrived, we quickly realized that 2 of the 3 servers did not seem to be updated on this new Happy Hour, despite the signs greeting us as we walked in. Still, everyone was lovely and so we got our $4 Cranberry & Vodka’s very soon after. Happy Hour is drink deals only, which is fine since it is 24-7, so we took a look at the regular menu, which had diner food galore from almost every cuisine – and almost everything had some form of meat in it. But I didn’t really expect a casino café to cater to vegetarians and made do with the $9.99 Pad Thai (ordered without chicken or beef or shrimp). Nothing says real-Thai-cookin’ like a casino at the state line of Nevada & California! Still, it was a big dish for the price, and reasonably tasty though a little spicier and less peanut-y than what I’ve grown used to.
After our drinks were downed and some of the Pad Thai eaten, we decided to call it a night since it was 10:30pm on a Monday and hardly anybody was at the restaurant. We boxed up the food and headed on our merry way back across the state line to our cozy little mountain inn in California.
The next day, we hopped in our rented Nissan Versa and drove back to Reno, NV, stopping along the way in the surprisingly charming old-timey town of Carson City, where we wish we’d had a chance to stop over at one of their many saloon’s Happy Hours!
And so ended our Lake Tahoe Happy Hour Tour, which we heartily recommend to all!
--JB
Rating: 3 Martinis
3542 Lake Tahoe Blvd
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150-8900
(530) 544-2739
www.brewerylaketahoe.com
Parking: Lot available onsite
Monday-Thursday, 4-6pm; $3 Brewery pints, $4 House wines and margaritas, $4 Jack Daniels & Captain Morgan’s drinks, $5 Pint and a Shot (Jameson, Jose, or Kamikaze), $6 Skky Flavored Vodka & Red Bull; select appetizers from $3-6
Just when I was beginning to think there were only sports bars in Lake Tahoe (besides Apres), Amanda & I happened upon… another sports bar! I think I liked this one most of all though. The Brewery sits upon the main stretch through South Lake Tahoe and so there are plenty of visiting tourists to strike up a conversation with during Happy Hour, which is served at the bar-only. I also liked that they played Oprah on one of the large flat-screen tv’s (until it was time for another sports game) and enjoyed the bartender’s iPod playlist, which was a nice mix of mid-90’s rap that I hadn’t heard since, well, the mid-90’s or when riding in JG’s car!
As you guessed, the Brewery is known for its beer selection,
w
hich is priced at only $3/pint during Happy Hour (and also available for purchase in the Brewery’s take-home growlers (y’know, the glass beer jugs with lids). As none of the brews were cider or had any fruit in them :), Amanda & I ordered the $4 House Margaritas, which were refreshing after a day’s drive around Lake Tahoe. We also went for the $4.99 Pesto & Garlic pizza chips (which are listed at $3.99 on the Brewery’s website), a thin-crust pizza, cut inventively so it’s more like chips, served with ranch dressing. Even though we had eaten a nice lunch at Rosie’s Cafe in Tahoe City just a few hours before, we most definitely enjoyed the entire order of pizza chips.
After my margarita, I was enticed by the description of the Bad-Ass ® * Lemonade, a delightfully sinful concoction made with vodka, gin, tequila, triple sec, sweet & sour, lemonade, and a splash of Razzmatazz. This was not on Happy Hour and was $8.50, hands down, totally worth it. After these 2 drinks, I was feeling no pain. And it also didn’t faze me when mid-90’s bartender and our new boat cruise bartender friend began testing their theories about the relationship of an alcohol’s proof and its ability to catch on fire – on the metal bar surface.
Boys will be boys, I guess! And what better place to be a boy (or meet one) than a big old brewery with a nice Happy Hour that should run longer than Monday-Thursday!
--JB
Rating: 3.5 Martinis (would have been more if they could run at least part of the weekend)
*Seriously, a registered trademark of the Brewery
3987 Lake Tahoe Blvd.
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
(530) 544-2113
www.applebees.com
twitter.com/Applebees
Parking: Free Lot!! We'ere not in LA anymore, baby!
Daily, 3-6pm & 9-12pm; $2 American Premium Pints, $3 Import/Craft Pints, $3 House Margaritas (all flavors), $4 Mucho House Margaritas (all flavors), $1 jello shots & $2.50 PBR; $5 appetizer selection
I was tempted to run this review with just the Happy Hour deal listed right above and this line below:
“Really, what can I say? It’s an Applebee's Happy Hour!”
But then, I wanted to give a little background on why I was so excited to cover an Applebee’s Happy Hour. See, JG & I often commiserate on the lack of fun chain restaurants in our vicinity. The nearest TGI Friday’s is literally 9.5 miles away, which is truly sad – given how many searches come up on our site’s visitor log for “TGIF’s happy hour.” We want to accommodate all our readers and their search for the details of TGI Friday’s Happy Hours, alas; there are just not enough around us here in Hollywoodland!
So, it was really very exciting when Amanda & I discovered an Applebee’s within walking distance of our South Lake Tahoe hotel! Having not been to an Applebee’s in some time, my eyes were larger than my appetite and so we ordered 3 items from their $5 appetizer selections: Mozzarella sticks and Spinach & Artichoke dip for me and Buffalo Wings (with Honey Glaze) for Amanda.
The food was your standard nice Applebee’s fare, hot & salty and our drinks were fine too. Figuring when in Rome (or in the Sierra Nevada’s), I went with a $3 pint of Sierra Nevada and Amanda stuck with her favorite non-Happy Hour Applebee’s drink – the White Peach Sangria (with white zinfandel & peach schnapps) served in a giant fishbowl of a glass and still only $6.50!
The scene was pretty quiet on the Sunday of Columbus Day wee kend, a couple other groups of people, sports games playing on every television (as is the case at any bar men might visit during the Fall season!).
I don’t even know how to rate the Happy Hour, I mean… “Really, what can I say? It’s an Applebee's Happy Hour!”
--JB
Rating: 4 Martinis
Camp Richardson
1900 Jameson Beach Road
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
(530) 541-0630
www.camprichardson.com
twitter.com/BeaconGrill
Parking: Free lot in front of the restaurant
Sunday – all day, Monday – 3pm-close, Tuesday-Saturday – 3-6pm; $1 off draft beers, $2.50 Coors Light, $5 Rum Runners & Peppermint Patties; $6.50 Pliny the Elder (it’s a beer (and a Roman author)); select appetizers from $3-8
Situated along the Southeast side of Lake Tahoe is nestled the tiny town/camping & cabin destination resort of Camp Richardson. Visiting Camp Richardson, Amanda & I really did feel like Chet & Roman from THE GREAT OUTDOORS. We rented a pair of cruiser bikes for an hour, riding up, down, and all around a bike trail that led through aspen trees and over a bridge that had become a tourist attraction during our visit due to the salmon spawning literally underfoot.
Afterwards, flush with the endorphins that a nice bike ride through the wilderness will bring you, we decided to check out Camp Richardson’s Beacon Bar & Grill, set back from the main road on the lake-front. Some of Amanda’s friends had recommended the restaurant, but warned that it was a bit pricey, so as always, we were thankful to learn they had an all-Sunday Happy Hour, where their famous Rum Runner drinks were on special for $5.
Of course that’s what Amanda & I ordered, muy delicioso frozen blended drinks poured out of grown-up slushee machines with dark rum floated on the top. We also ordered the $6 chips, salsa, & guacamole, a tasty colorful array.
Happy Hour takes place at the bar, but it did appear that you could maybe order your Happy Hour treats and take them outside to the waterfront. Which is maybe what Amanda & I should have done, since a female birthday party got really loud, like hurt-my-ears loud, while they cheered on one of the 6 teams playing football on-screen?
Still, it was fun people-watching in the bar, especially the cute Executive Chef who popped out to check the scores, and the other staff members that all seemed cool and like they wouldn’t be out of place in a movie like the THE SLAMMIN’ SALMON. However, despite their friendliness, the bartenders did card both Amanda & I, which would have seemed fine if we were actually sitting at the bar. As it was, I had to get up from the table and show them my license. Not that I’m lazy (I am), but it just seemed weird. What if Amanda had wanted 2 for herself (she did)?
I wish we could have had a couple more Rum Runners, but we were kinda out in the wild and needed to stay sober for our drive back to civilization/another Happy Hour!
--JB
Rating: 4 Martinis (4.5 if you could take your Happy Hour on the patio!)
Ski Run Center
3668 Lake Tahoe Blvd. South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
(530) 544-9463
apreswineco.com
twitter.com/apreswineco
Parking: A beautiful, plentiful non-pay parking lot!
Monday-Saturday, 4-6pm & 9-10pm (all night on Mondays for the football season); $3 Bubbly by the glass, $3 featured beers, $4 featured white & red wines; four appetizer selections from $3-4
Thank goodness for Southwest Airlines – free luggage, good prices on flights, free drink coupons easily earned. To celebrate their birthday this year, Southwest offered good deals on flights around the country. To help them ring in this momentous occasion :), Amanda (famous to you all for our Santa Monica Happy Hour Tour) & I decided to meet up in Lake Tahoe for a long weekend in October ($39 each way from LAX!).
The weekend we picked happened to be Columbus Day Weekend, though I can only count on one hand the people I know whose jobs/schools observe the date. Columbus Day falls during the off season in Lake Tahoe – between the beautiful ski season winter and THE GREAT OUTDOORS - like summer lake & forest activities. It was a perfect time for us to visit, the weather was still temperate, the leaves of the aspen trees beginning to yellow amidst the forest green pines.
We had a terrific time; we drove around the whole lake in a day, we took a paddle-wheel boat across the lake, we rode bikes through the aspen groves, we hiked down to a Scandinavian castle in the Emerald Bay (and of course hiked back up!). We also, dear readers, visited 5 happy hours in 3 days and I ate & drank more shitty shit than I had in all the days of the previous year combined! But, I’m happy to report, it was worth it! And so, for the next week, we’ll be running the reviews from South Lake Tahoe Happy Hours!
Our first review takes place at our first Happy Hour stop, Apres Wine Bar, which is a cute wine shop/restaurant located in the elbow of an alpine-decorated strip mall. Like Santa Monica’s Pourtal, which Amanda & I had visited several weeks before, Apres featured an Enomatic wine tasting system, where you buy the wine debit card to purchase tastings from the automatic machine.
And again, we instead stuck with the $4 Happy Hour-priced featured wines, which our bartender/server was very knowledgeable about. I first picked the red, the funnily-named Goats du Roam red blend that was rich and tasty. Amanda tried the Cedar Mountain Sauvignon Blanc, which was so nice and fruity and zingy, I had to order that for my 2nd glass.
We also ordered the $4 spinach artichoke dip, which was served cold and we hadn’t expected that. It was tasty nevertheless as were the salty olives and warm pita triangles served with it. Extra pita did cost $1 extra, which seems a little cheapo on behalf of the restaurant, but hey, maybe there are a lot of cheap visitors to Lake Tahoe :)?
The front of Apr
es is actually a wine shop with tons of bottles of wines and wine gifts (pourers, bottle stoppers, aprons, etc.) and the whole venture seems like a happening place. When we arrived at 4:45pm on a Saturday afternoon, all of the bar seats were taken and there was a good number of people sitting at the other tables. The bartender was the only person taking orders at the bar or tables, but she was very efficient and we enjoyed the two glasses well before Happy Hour was over at 6. I would have a problem with that early Happy Hour end-time in LA, but judging by the times of the other Happy Hours we visited in Lake Tahoe, it seems like people may get off work before us LA-liens.
In summation, if you’re in South Lake Tahoe and want to stop by a cute, cozy place with a million wine selections, I’d say to definitely check out Apres.
--JB
Rating: 4.5 martinis
