Party Every Day

I’m going to be totally transparent here and immediately profess my unabashed love for Elixir Bar and Grill. It is hands down, bottoms up, my favorite bar in Sacramento. And I’m not alone.

It’s not that they have the best craft cocktails I’ve ever had—although they have a fairly-priced full bar with great craft and cheap beers alike on tap.

It’s not that the decor and ambiance are an expression of good taste and elegance—although it’s clean and comfortable, has Skee Ball and Big Buck Hunter, sports on flat screen TVs, a jukebox and a cozy, covered patio.

It’s not that they have the best bar food you’ll ever sink your teeth into—although the food is really goddamn good for a dive bar, and I’m consistently impressed with it.

It’s definitely not that they have clean bathrooms—although they’ve at least painted the walls a welcoming shade of grayish-lavender recently, which were previously black and covered in bad graffiti.

It’s the people. From the owners—quarrelsome but inseparably close brother and sister Christina and Curt Pow—to the staff, to the patrons; you can always be certain that you will have a great fucking time and make some new friends at Elixir.

So it’s no wonder that they’re celebrating their 10th anniversary on Sept. 12, 2015. This is not a bar reliant on gimmicks to have enjoyed its longevity, but a consistently chill place to hang out.

Curt and Christina bicker like siblings often do, but it’s clear that they are also best friends. Curt had other business ventures in mind when he conceded to opening a bar with his little sister, who had a background in the industry. For Christina, there was no question what she wanted to do. “It’s always been a dream to open a bar or a restaurant—and not only that, an office job didn’t suit me,” she says. “We come from a long line of business owners, so it’s just innate. And that’s what makes Elixir: our presence here.”

Elixir means a potion that makes you feel good, and the name was borrowed from Christina’s favorite bar in San Francisco. The auspicious location on 10th Street between S and T was secured by Curt. They rolled up their sleeves and built out the bar together.

Back in 2005 when they opened, the Fox and Goose and Old Ironsides were the mainstays in the vicinity, and the most popular bars in town were Golden Bear and Monkey Bar. There were many trials and tribulations getting Elixir off the ground. “Oh, we didn’t know what the fuck we were doing,” laughs Christina.

“We took it for granted when we opened that we’d stay open,” elaborates Curt. “We were like, cool, we have a business … It was kind of a clubhouse at the beginning, but to a detriment. We learned that we shouldn’t be drunker than our clientele. I was relying on my sister on that one, having been a bartender previously. I was like, ‘Are you sure we should be doing shots right now?’”

“The greatest lesson we’ve learned is how to work as a team,” admits Christina.

With that knowledge acquired, Elixir seems unstoppable. While a growing number of modern, upscale, pricy, mixology-centric establishments are opening to great reviews all over Sacramento and the nation, there will always be barflies gladly occupying dive bar stools—especially in a place where you’re made to feel like Norm from Cheers.

“It’s all craft cocktails now,” says Curt. “It’s awesome that people want to make the best cocktails there are. We’re not a craft cocktail bar. It’s not what our customers want. Occasionally they do, and if I’m inclined to, I’ll make you a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned or whatever, but for the most part, no, that’s not what we’re about. I don’t want to spend 20 minutes making you a drink. Not that I’m knocking anyone that does that, it’s just that it takes all kinds of places. You can get a drink anywhere. I think what sets us apart is the vibe, the mood, the setting.”

Elixir is also known for being relatively affordable, and for pouring heavy. My friends and I have made up a verb for the effect: “She Christina’d me.” It’s not uncommon to go there for “one drink” and leave unexpectedly shitfaced in a cab, owing to comradely regulars and those stiff-ass drinks.

The kitchen is open until 1 a.m., and the menu—consisting mainly of fried food, pizza, salads and rotating specials—offers delicious, well-executed ways of soaking up all that unanticipated alcohol. Their killer weekend brunch fare will annihilate most hangovers—try the spam and fried rice with two over easy eggs. Upon request, they’ll make it Loco Moco style with a half-pound Angus beef patty and rich, dripping eggs oozing over the spam fried rice, all of which is then smothered in their homemade gravy.

“The food came about because me and my sister don’t half-ass anything. Anything we do, we do well. You learn throughout the years, certain things work and certain things don’t. Hamburgers always sell, it’s like, who doesn’t want a hamburger? We live in America,” remarks Curt.

Hilarity ensues nightly here. I recall laughing to tears when one of the regulars was caught on video slyly sneak-eating his boogers, and another regular posted it on Facebook. Curt’s favorite funny Elixir moment involved pirate shots. “I have a friend, Clifford, who likes to do the stupidest things, like pirate shots. You snort a line of salt, squirt the lime in your eye …”

Christina interrupts, “Then I kick you in the shin, and you hop on one leg, and then you get naked afterwards.”

Corrects Curt, “Well, he just got naked, I’m sure that’s not what happens with all pirate shots, but yeah, he got naked, and remained naked and was streaking all over the place.”

When I asked Curt and Christina how they foresee things changing over the next 10 years, Christina hopes they’ll still be thriving, just the way things are. “We’ll never fully step away from this place,” she says, “because we enjoy it.”

By the time I’d wrapped up the interview with the sibling owners, I’d been graciously treated to four unrequested shots of tequila. On a roll, I stumbled over to one of their bartenders, Jen Simpson, who has been working at Elixir for the past three years. “What do you love about Elixir?”

Simpson replied, “Everything. It’s a really comfortable atmosphere. It’s obviously family-run, where you have that comfort level you don’t get many places. It was my favorite bar before I started working here. The drinks are strong and inexpensive. It’s a chill environment where every kind of person in Sacramento comes and everyone seems to get along. There’s nothing not to like about it.”

Celebrate Elixir’s 10th Anniversary on Saturday, Sept. 12 at 3 p.m. at 1815 10th Street. Kill The Precedent, Celestions, Fifty Watt Heavy, Night Damage, Twilight Drifters, Mixed Friction, Storytellers and Drop Dead Red will be playing on an outdoor stage. Tickets are $20, and proceeds will benefit the Mary Graham Children’s Foundation. Tickets can be purchased through Shufflesix.queueapp.com.

At Home with the Regulars

Where there once was a bar, hidden in a seemingly abandoned basement corridor of the downtown mall, there now exists a crater under construction. The Pre-Flite Lounge was a 40-year-old time capsule, a quaint bar untouched by time, that perhaps lingered because it was forgotten. The Pre-Flite Lounge was lukewarm domestic beer served in frosted mugs to offset the tap temperature. A heavy hand poured no-nonsense cocktails like whiskey-water, gin-tonic and vodka-soda. When the craft-craze of artisanal beer and cocktails swept through Sacramento, the Pre-Flite didn’t balk and no one seemed to mind. Former regulars look back and their memories are unified by signifiers like “unpretentious” and “classic.” Everyone remembers their first time and becomes protective of who they tell out of respect for the bar.

That was the legacy of the original before it was demolished last year to build a new cathedral for our NBA franchise we fought desperately to keep. And even though owner Jason Yee purchased the establishment in 2010, he remained committed to its continuation by opening a new home mere blocks away in Jazz Alley.

“My goal was to take over and run it another 20 or 30 years,” Yee said regarding his acquisition of the bar. There were no arena talks in 2010 threatening Pre-Flite, only the impending sale by Heather Parisi, owner since 1982. When she vetted Yee on the purchase, it was done the old fashioned way, he recalls. He ran a yogurt cafe in the mall called Yummy Yogurt. Upon learning about the chance to purchase, he regularly patroned the bar for a few months, expressing interest in conversation. One afternoon the bartender casually slipped him a napkin with a phone number on it.

“He kinda slid it over to me and said, ‘hey, the owner wants to talk to you.’”

Yee drove to Parisi’s home in Carmichael soon after. They talked for four hours over whiskey-waters about everything except the bar, mostly “her family, [my] family, and life” he said. Eventually she disclosed that while she had many suitors eager to purchase, she liked him and trusted his intentions with the bar. That vote of confidence only goes so far, though. Yee still had to earn the trust of the regulars.

“As soon as I was taking over, a lot of the regulars were concerned I would change everything up,” he said. “I had always loved the Pre-Flite, so I wanted to keep it the same.”

That desire to not disrupt the natural order is inherent in a Pre-Flite regular. I never became one myself, but I respected the sanctity. It was never about exclusivity, just that cryptic “don’t ruin the bar” mentality.

My guide one night in 2009 was a former writer for this magazine, Vincent Girimonte, who deemed me worthy of entering the hallowed ground of the original Pre-Flite Lounge. That night we rode our bikes to a section of L Street that felt deserted at 7 p.m. It struck me as almost impossible to stumble in without guidance. Entering Pre-Flite for the first time was like past-life deja vu or checking into the Hotel California. Everything felt unchanged since before you were born, from the carpeted floors and the wood-paneled walls to the neon-lit jukebox in the back corner.

You even wondered if the patrons bellied up to the bar had been there for a few hours or a few decades. With repeat visits you learned names, like Russ behind the bar, and which day there’s free bean dip. You meet the dogs, too: the Jack Russell Terrier Louie that trots around with disinterest in attention unless food is involved, and the large white sheep dog named Babs that can stand with its paws on the bar like any other regular.

My experience is not unique. There are many who considered Pre-Flite Lounge their home or home-away-from-home. As a regular only to be referred to as Kevin told me, “A lot of people have lived and died there.”

Kevin started coming in 2011 after Yee took over, learning of the bar through a newspaper article. He called the old location “the perfect man cave.” He goes to the new location as well. It’s here around 4 p.m. he brings up the historical hearsay of past owners. Legend has it Parisi was mentioned in the will of original owner, Larry Bowa. After he died, his girlfriend ran the bar for a year before she passed away as well. It was then discovered that Parisi was in the will to purchase Pre-Flite. Any further insight as to what her relationship to Bowa might have been was taken to another lifetime upon her passing in November 2013.

Pete is a regular who still frequents the new Pre-Flite as well. His first trip to Pre-Flite was in 2008, in need of a pint on the way to a Rivercats baseball game. To Pete it’s that classic, unpretentious quality that allowed Pre-Flite to remain undisrupted.

“It calms down the atmosphere,” he said. “People came in regardless of their background, took in the ambiance and everyone got on the same wavelength.”

When Yee sought a new location, he pursued real estate much like the former—hidden and precarious. There is no signage, only a velvet rope to an open doorway in an alley. That door leads to a bank vault and within the vault are the faithful patrons of Pre-Flite Lounge 2.0 (as he calls it) carrying on the legacy. The jukebox is there, still functional and loaded with vintage tracks, some growing increasingly obscure with time. Yee salvaged the old doors with the outdated sign of “Happy Hour 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.: 65 cents.” Alice the comically busty mannequin is there as well. But like any new chapter, there are missing pieces that will fade into the history books.

“There’s stuff we have in storage we thought about bringing out,” Yee said. “But now that we’re here, we want our clients now and our friends to bring new stuff in to make it their own.”

The move has its growing pains. Bartender Bridget Lopez says Louie the terrier is uncomfortable with the cement floors and she tries to make him feel relaxed by bundling up sweaters on the floor. Some regulars like Larry and his dog Babs have yet to come by the new location. But, Pre-Flite 2.0 has neighbors like photographer Nicholas Wray, Omar Salazar’s skate collective Doom Sayers, and hundreds of industry servers and cooks in need of a secluded watering hole for a post-shift (or, more apropos) pre-shift drink. The afternoon I’m there interviewing regulars, Adam Pechal, local chef in flux, is there doing just that, raising awareness to his industry friends that a semi-hidden bar exists. His only complaint is that he no longer has storage space in the building from his former restaurant Thir13en.

“I wish it was here two years ago when I was in and out next door all the time,” he says. “I could pick up some catering equipment, stop in for quick beverage and move along with my day. I could have been drinking [Jason’s] booze instead of my booze.”

Epilogue:

Jazz Alley between 10th and 11th downtown has no folklore nor history to the coinage. There was no infamous juke joint or speakeasy where Charles Mingus or Duke Ellington once played, therefore earning the title. Jazz Alley is Jazz Alley by mandate of the city. We had no say, much like we are at the mercy of K Street becoming The Kay, knowing that only tourists call it that. As much as developers and city planners might think you can invent districts, invent history, you can’t. History is earned.

Pre-Flite Lounge 2.0 cannot salvage the crock naming of Jazz Alley, just like Pre-Flite Lounge 2.0 will never fully recapture the essence of the original. But regulars like Kevin, Pete and Pechal agree that the spiritual calm that made the original a haven is not lost entirely. Pre-Flite is not the first bar in Sacramento to move and maintain its mythos. This is not a city deeply concerned with the historical protection of olive toothpicks. But steadfast are its barflies, relaying the oral history to the stool adjacent.