Anybody who's been following our Twitter feed knows that we've been pretty obsessed with all these Pirate stories from the last few months. So, in the spirit of staying abreast of current events, we recently hit up our favorite neighborhood in Los Angeles, for a night out at Crazy Hook, Koreatown's very own dot, dot, dot pirate bar/restaurant.
One of the things we love about Koreatown is that its bar owners and restuaranteurs are not shy at taking on novelty themes (pirate bars, robot bars, etc) and not being too cool to actually really run with the themes. For intstance, take the Redwood Bar and Grill, which is located downtown and which we mentioned yesterday. It is billed as a pirate bar, but other than maybe a pirate flag and the bar having lots of dark wood and thus giving off a vaguely nautical feel, it's a "pirate bar" mostly because "hipsters" say it is.
Yeah, Crazyhook has pirate flags:
And, yeah, the interior is dark, wooden, and generally feels like you're on a boat.
And it has a pirate greeter who bares a striking resemblance to Grateful Dead guiatarist Bob Weir (in the foreground, and skeptical friends in the background):
It also has, of course, the obligatory one armed/one hooked pirate who would like to take his picture with you:
But lest you get too complacant around the pirates, know that they usually kidnap and string up at least one female patron nightly:
(note: this fact is more or less made up) There are pretty much dangerous pirates lurking in every dark corner of the place:
Of course, in addition to really taking the themes seriously, the other thing that Korean establishments use that, for reasons unbeknownst to us, their US counterparts have not gotten smart to, is the Booze Botton:
The genuis of the Booze Button is that the servers leave patrons alone to enjoy the company of their companions until the moment the group hits the button, then, seemingly out of nowhere, a server arrives leaving your group with exactly what you want when you want it (namely, centimeters and centimeters of yummy beer)
After a few centimeters of beer and the Crazy Hook sign starts showing up in all sorts of funky colors:
