Farah's Bar: Alternative Rock, bacon cheeseburgers and serenity

Farah's Bar is located at 710 Michigan St. NE
in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to speak with you again.

Opening a post with a Simon and Garfunkel song; here we go.

After my last two trips to the pub, which involved either way too much bros fighting or way too much bros arguing about which party to go
—you should start to see a pattern of things I hate—I headed to Farah’s Bar located here. 

Farah’s is another tavern that’s a part of Grand Rapids’ Michigan St. corridor. And as I visited the bar, the place was just what the opening line implied, dark and pretty quiet---it was awesome.

Granted, it was not off to a great start.

When I walked in around 11:30 p.m. after my latest round of high school sports reporting, there were some really large gentlemen that were standing up and having the shoving, shouting contest that can only be described as the ‘Bro Down’.

I thought about doing the classic walk in/walk out loop, but no. I’m a reporter damit, I’m here to report, and drink, and maybe play pool (God, I have a great life), and maybe meet people to prove to my mom that I actually do interact with other people (she’s worried about me).

I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a Sam Adams’ Oktoberfest from one of the two, rather cute, bartenders—a while back I made a point never to pursue a bartender while she was working—it just does not go well for anyone, ever.

I never been at Farah’s before, so I was not so sure what kind of food they served or how cool are the cooks with making something past midnight. I asked one of the bartenders if I could order a cheeseburger at the late hour. She said I could and asked if I wanted bacon on it—alright, now we’re talking.

There were about six other people at the bar area that sits roughly 14 (I have not taken up the habit of counting the seating area of bars—yet). In the seating area behind me there were a few groups of five or so, one of them were taking turns playing Golden Tee. (Two Golden Tee references in three weeks, didn’t see that coming).

While munching on my burger I was glancing at Sports Center showing the highlights from the American and National League Championships Series. In truth, I do not care much for baseball. I like it when the Tigers win, and I will go to a game if asked, but outside of glancing at the bottom line, I really don’t follow the sport much. (I'll wait patiently for Homeland Security to take me away for questioning.)

But the bar was playing some really good Alternative Rock on the jukebox, including a very catchy acoustic version of Cage the Elephant’s ‘Take It or Leave It’, along with some other pretty solid songs for a bar.

A situation never really presented itself for me to talk to anybody, as eventually the group at the end of the bar dispersed and we replaced with a two couples that were sharing some sort of cocktail or something.

At the pool table there were four gentlemen shooting a few games, but they appeared to be all in the same group, so I wasn’t in much of a mood to insert myself into their game.

Man, I was really having a hard time being interactive. In fairness, I had a long day that involved breakfast with my grandparents and taking my mom to seeing The Judge for her birthday ,(highly recommend The Judge—although I was a little disappointed that at the climax Robert Downing Jr. just didn’t stand up and say ‘screw this court, I’m Ironman’…oh, spoilers). Maybe they’ll save that for the sequel.

But the real reason why I was not in the mood to talking to people—other than my overall awkwardness--was that I really didn’t need to talk to anyone to enjoy my experience at the bar.

Farah’s makes a pretty good burger—a must for a good bar—and the scene was pretty solid. Much unlike its neighbor.

I ordered a short Fat Tire for my second beer, as a 30 for 30 documentary on some baseball catcher who had some sort of psychological problem with throwing the ball from behind the plate to the pitcher’s mound—again baseball, I struggle to stay invested. (Yes, I realize I write about sports for a living, but we all have our favorites, and baseball is not mine).

It was just past 1 a.m., so the two bartenders were beginning to close up shop (maybe I should revisit my whole fraternization with the bartender policy, perhaps putting in a caveat on if there is nobody around). 

The far end of the bar a group were ordering shots of Jamison and I was starting to finish my beer.

I realized how much effort it takes to talk to people you don’t know. When I’m out on my journalistic duties, I have the fallback of my company’s name and my occupation to warrant talking to someone. 

But striking up a conversation with someone that isn’t directly next you, that’s a whole new ballgame.

Still, I found Farah’s to be a rather enjoyable place to grab a drink and quick bite to eat. The bar is plenty spacious to bring over a group of people, and the beer selection on tap is pretty solid.

I settled my tab and left a pretty good tip (again, cute bar staff, I’ll decided latter if that was sexist on my part—I’m going to give it a tentative no).

I headed for the door and noticed that the same group of guys were now hugging it out—the power of the bar ladies and gentlemen.

Overall, my trip to Farah’s was a pretty quiet not. Not a whole lot of memorable incidents, but that can be appreciated from time to time.

A lot of great bars are just quiet places where you can sit and think (and drink), and my trip to Farah’s proved that it could be one of those places. And a friendly staff and decent food is always a plus.

Maybe there is something to being a borderline introvert, it doesn’t take much to make us happy.

Just a quiet place to sit, something good to drink, and decent burger.

Wow, it really doesn’t make much to make me happy. Simon and Garfunkel were on to something.

Or they were just on drugs……it was probably the drugs.