It’s been a while since I got to do this. I’m sitting in theSpotted Dog, eating blue cheese chips and drinking Newcastle, just to get away from my desk for a couple of hours, at least. Even now, though, I’m continuing to work (well, not now — right now I’m playing with the free WiFi), thanks to the magical productivity benefits of working in a half-empty pub.
A couple of weeks ago, I tried this trick at the Graveyard Tavern in East Atlanta, and got a surprising amount of work done, sitting at the bar with printouts and my red pen. I’d stopped going to the Graveyard because it still feels weirdly empty and somehow unfinished — like the tables have been set up on a stage with plenty of space for the actors to play their scenes. Happily, the Graveyard updated their menu back in September (which was news to me), but unhappily it isn’t quite enough, yet, I don’t think. Still, I’ll go back again and sample something else off the new menu to be sure, and let you know.
But first, let me say that the Spotted Dog is a great space — big but with some cozy spaces, dark but not gloomy, classy but not too stiff. The building, as you know, used to be a firehouse, but inside I might think I was in part of an old train station, thanks to the scale (big clock, huge bar, expansive tile floor). Parking is a right bitch, but if I were on foot in Midtown, I’d get in here in a second.
The menu here seems to be identica to Hand in Hand (which is, I think, the only other Derek Lawford pub I’ve actually been to), which is fine, but also a bit of a letdown — I like this menu plenty, but I feel like I’m going to exhaust it pretty quick, especially if I’m seemingly ordering off it everywhere I go. Until that happens, I’ll get me another Newcastle, order something with Stilton and try to imagine how I can get back to the UK.
While I’m daydreaming, though, tell me something: What’s your favorite of the Derek Lawford pubs?