Bailey's on Bluff- Great Decor in Great Decline

Bailey's on Bluff, in (you guessed it) a strip mall on the Northwest corner of Southport Road and Bluff Road, used to be one of the Bubbaz chain of Southside bars that came to be known for their Combat Nightlife, which is why (I think) none of them are called Bubbaz anymore.  I can't remember what it was called before it was Bubbaz, but I suspect the original owners wanted to open an upscale place to draw in the more well-to-do clientele moving into Murphy's Landing and other nearby expensive housing additions, just as Grumpy Ed's across the street tried to do before it gave up the ghost and became Robbie's Pub.  The wood paneling and bar layout of this place is gorgeous, but it hasn't been updated, or even maintained, really.  The carpet is old and smelly and worn, even more than the usual formless, colorless bar carpet.  Maybe it was the excess humidity of an unseasonably warm, rainy day in January, but the whole place had a musty, sour booze smell that I found really unpleasant.  As a result I didn't try any of the pub grub, and neither did anyone else while I was there.  Now that there is a smoking ban, bar & grilles are going to have to step up on their housekeeping now that they don't have stale cigarette smoke smell to mask the aroma of vomit, urine, and other fermenting fluid residues.

On the plus side, though, the beer and drink prices are decent, there are a number of big-screen TV's and tables set up specifically to view them, and usually at least one of the barmaids on duty is a smokin' hot babe.  But for the Geezer that I am, clean and comfortable trumps visual cheesecake almost any day, so unless they do some cleaning and renovating, Bailey's on Bluff is not on my return list.

Shallo's - A Southside Icon Soldiers On.

Shallo's is not in a strip mall, it's in a REAL mall, the one at Stop 13 and Hardegan Street that we used to call the Target Mall before Target fled and was replaced by Old Tyme Pottery.  I dunno what the real name of the mall is, but probably no one but the owners know, either.  Shallo's has it's own exterior entrance as well as one off the interior hall, and is a quintessential example of the "Fern Restaurants" that became popular in the late 70's and early 80's, like Bennigan's and TGI Friday's:  Old wood and brass interiors with various old signs and memorabilia on the walls.  In Shallo's case, the memorabilia includes a giant neon "INSURANCE" sign over the bar and several other lighted signs scattered throughout as well as numerous antique metal signs, framed posters, and a few stained glass windows, all of which have local historical significance explained in the back of the menu.  The cornices around the ceiling of both the first and second floors are also lined with a couple hundred old beer tapper handles, ranging from everyday ordinary to very rare or defunct brands.  

The beer tappers hint at Shallo's specialty:  They claim to have 500 brands of beer available, and you can see at least 100 of the bottled varieties on display in several large windowed coolers behind the bar and in the dining room. The day we went (January 2nd), however, they were out of  draft Warsteiner Dunkel and (gasp!) Guinness.  A different bar owner friend later told us that the local beer distributors had an unusually heavy demand on New Year's Eve this year, so maybe that was the source of the shortage.  The Little Woman and I both had the $7.99 5-ounce Sirloin lunch special, and it was EXCELLENT!  The steak was like 1.5 inches thick and cooked to perfection, the baked potato was large, fresh, and baked tender, and my side salad was likewise fresh and crisp.  I'm now on a crappy low-sodium diet for a medical condition, and the staff made adjustments for that-- the only no-sodium salad dressing I know is Vinegar & Oil, and though the waitress said they didn't have that, she was able to procure me a little cup of red wine vinegar and a little cup of oil, so with that and a Warsteiner Lager I was happy.  Prosit!