Rusty Gull Neighbourhood Pub (North Vancouver)

Rusty Gull Neighbourhood Pub  175 E 1 Street, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  Ph# 604-988-5585  www.rustygull.com  Located in North Vancouver across the Burrard Inlet from downtown Vancouver.  Founded in 1983 and a local favorite for over 30 years.  It is a small cozy bar, long and narrow.  It has a very nautical ship building theme as this area was the ship building area and still is today.  They have quite a few great old pictures of the ship yards and workers. As  you enter the front door, there is a small beer and wine store on your right, then they have 2 large booths.  On the left side is the kitchen followed by the first half of the bar that has a very nice gas fireplace.  The sit up bar is in the middle of the pub but there are only a few seats, on either side.  It is a very nice looking bar, but there are bar stools in a row right across from it with a small ledge to set your drink. The back or south side of the bar has a small stage where they have live music on Friday and Saturday nights and some Sundays.  Since the bar is built on a slope, the back patio area is one story off the ground, and has a retractable roof.  It had a great view of the water before a condo high rise was built recently.  As for beer there are 18 different types of beer on tap.  Their house wine is Peller Estates Wine which is an Ontario, Canada winery.  They have lunch and dinner specials daily.  I did not eat here this time, but others around the pub were eating and all the meals looked very good. They have 3 HD TV's, just enough to watch the game.  I have always liked this pub, and suggest that you give it a try!!

Slo Pitch Sports Grill & Casino ( Bellingham Wa.)

Slo Pitch Sport Grill and Casino 3720 Meridian Street Bellingham, Washington, USA  www.slopitchcasino.com  This place is so easy to get to and from from Interstate 5.  Take the Meridian exit in Bellingham and go west about a block and there it is, nestled in between to hotels on the south side of the street.  When you walk in there is family  area with tables and booths, but we never saw any children while we were there. Then you go in to the bar, which has a pony wall around it to separate it from the family area.  There is a small Casino in the back of the bar with tables etc. They have a granite sit up bar that holds about 22 people.  They have 34 different games of pull tabs.  As for beer on tap, they have 12 different types of beer.  The only wine they serve is 14 Hands, Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Gris as for the reds they have 2 or 3,  14 Hands is a nice wine.  We got there around 5:15 pm, in time for happy hour.  Slo Pitch has 2 happy hours one at 11 am and 1 at 5 pm that runs to 6.  So we were in time for happy hour and we ordered salad, Home Plate Nachos with taco meat ($5.00), and a Quesadilla with chicken ($5.00).  The waitress kinda looked at us funny.  When the food arrived, we see why she looked at us funny.  The Nachos were huge, and they don't cut back on anything at happy hour.  The Quesadilla was also big, it was all we could do to eat the Nachos and Salad.  They were very good and the Quesadilla made a great lunch the next day. There are over 12 flat screen HD TV's with all kinds of sports on.  They have 4 round high tables and chairs that each seat 4, you could squeeze more in if you had to.  The service was very good!  Our waitress was on the move all the time looking after her customers.   It was quite busy when we were there and no one had to look and hunt her down.  If she was not waiting on tables she was cleaning and wiping things down.  If your spouse isn't interested in going to the pub, Bellisfair Mall is just a could of blocks away on the east side of Interstate 5.  Just saying........two birds with one stone.  I would definitely come here again!