Scary Bar Project: Meytex Lounge
Nature clearly warns you when to back off: bumblebees black-and-yellow coloration; rattlesnakes noisemakers; dogs bared fangs. Ignore these warning signs, and your funeral is your fault. Scary bars offer similar caution symbols. Chiefly darkened windows make your imagination skitter toward fisticuffs and filthy booze, bathroom blowjobs and coke bumps.
Um, Im not going in there, my girlfriend says, gesturing toward the blood-sausage–colored windows of Meytex Lounge. A Ghana flag decorates the green awning, the only clue to its grandeuror god-awfulness.
Its probably a stripper bar, she says.
Im experiencing an unprecedented year for glimpsing bare breasts, and my friends are tired of T and A. It is not, I say quietly, adding, I dont think.
That inept assurance lures my girlfriend, along with several adventurous imbibers, into what we discover to be a Ghanaian bar-restaurant. Reggae and world music thump, soccer players boot balls on TV and walls are ornamented with pictures and press clippings of noteworthy Ghanaians. We perch at a petite wooden bar; behind the counter, clear fridges contain the evenings happy juice.
Big bottles of Colt 45 malt liquor share shelf space with Heineken, Guinness and quart-size vessels of Ghanas Gulder Lager ($6). Its label boasts, The ultimate in beer. To test that claim, we order four from a short, cheerful bartender-hostess-server with a West African accent thick as peanut butter.
My sister imports these, she says, opening our Gulder quartet. I promise, these beers will get you drunk. Fifteen minutes later, the mild-mannered lager has made us loosey-goosey. Were even unperturbed by a gentleman power-chugging mini bottles of Sutter Home zinfandel, one after another, his face growing grimmer with each drained bottle.
You liked those, right? the bartender says, gathering our empties like a sheep herder.
We nod.
Try this then, she says, retrieving Africas Castle Milk Stout ($4). Its Guinness thick, sweet cousin (thanks to an infusion of lactose, a.k.a. milk sugar). The stouts redolent of roasted coffee, and drinks smooth as milky Nesquik. Drinking twos a rotten notion, but ones a rich treat. My fellow dudes have opted for deuce-deuces of Colt 45. Their labels are as faded as Billy Dee Williams acting career.
Theyre $3 each, the bartender says, blatantly disregarding the printed-on price tag: $1.25.
The high price is a bite, but Meytex wins me back with its Guinness. Casual drinkers know that Irelands Guinness is creamier and richer than Americas quaff. But Guinness also crafts Foreign Extra Stout. Its brewed with extra hops, meaning its extra potent. West African Guinness ($4) clocks in at a brain-erasing 7.5 percent alcohol (nearly double the typical 4 percent).
Its beautifully bitter rocket fuel, my friend says, wincing with a sip. The bartender smiles in approval. Once more weve been proved wrong.
Meytex is a classic false-positive scary bar. Petrifying from the outside, its insides are as gooey as a Cadbury egg. Fear, like my love life during my early 20s, was only in our heads.
Perceived Scariness (on a scale of 1 to 10): 7; Actual Scariness: 4; Summary: Who knew Ghanaian beer was so good?
Meytex Lounge, 543-545 Flatbush Ave. (betw. Lincoln Rd. & Maple St.), Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Bklyn, 718-941-1093