I think I would prefer Blinky's over The Hut because it is wayy more spacious, and there is actually some room to dance. Â On busy nights, the crowd consists of mostly SCU students. Â This isn't a place for oldies, unless you want to creep. Â It gets busy around 1130 to midnightish.
In terms of drinks, I had two drinks last night...The first drink was an Irish car bomb.. $7, and let me tell you...DO NOT ORDER THIS HERE. Â The bartender pretty much poured Guinness directly into the mix, rather than letting us drop it in like a bomb. Â It tasted really funky, and curdled, so I tried to drink it super fast to keep myself from gagging. Second drink I had was a shot of tequila, and it tasted pretty horrible, but did the job.
Another annoying thing was that, there were 3 bartenders that night, and all three of them were serving the the right side of the bar, and leaving the left side unattended. Â I think I was waiting for like an entire hour before getting a drink (fail, I know). Lame things aside, if you come with a positive and ready to have fun attitude, a fun night will always result :)
Have been coming here for over a year now.  It is a SUPER divey dive bar so if you're into that then you will love this place!! They have a pool table, strong cheap drinks, jukebox, darts, and some pinball machines.  There are  a lot of regulars and an older crowd except for thursdays.  I steer clear on thursdays because it's college night and all the Santa Clara students come. They even have a live DJ.  It gets way too crowded for me on those nights.  Josh and Danny are the best bartenders.  Definitely recommend Fridays, it's karaoke night there!
Review Source:What to do when drinks run out at a college houseparty? cab over to Blinky's.
And that's exactly what we did, on my boyfriend's birthday.
Thursday night...around late 10-ish. the place was dead. My boyfriend says it's pretty unusual as this place gets packed...but nah. it was pretty dead on dead.
We ordered jager bombs, and i was surpised the shots were served on mini plastic cups. I mean...c'mon. How am i gonna bomb my jager when it'll just float in a bigger plastic cup, now? Might as well just use those gargle cups they use in airplanes. More shot-glass looking with dainty looking designs..right? So im guessing.... maybe it can be pretty rowdy here....therefore plastics come to the rescue.
So...hmm.. quick night for us... boyfriend and i just left.
This is not the most objective review.
Me: Can I have a caribou lou?
Bartender: A what?
Me: It is 151, Malibu rum and pineapple juice.
Bartender: We don't have 151
Blinky's offers karaoke, reasonably priced drinks, and a ton of parking. However, the karaoke list leaves something to be desired, lacking "karaoke classics". The lack of 151 can only be thought of as tragic and on the verge of unprofessional. But my main problem with this place is the crowd. I am 22 and most of the people here were out of my age group. This place isn't terrible but simply not for me.
Santa Clara seems to have the best dive bars. Â I don't know why. Â I've fallen in love with the suburban dive bar, and places like Blinky's are the reason why. Â
Besides being divey in a certain charming sort of way, this is actually a well run establishment as far as dives go. Â It's not the most mass transit friendly location, so you will have to be careful to either drink responsibly or take a cab home. Â I'd probably end up having to opt for the latter.
Sports on T.V., Video Games, Darts and Pool. Great service.
I have been to this bar twice. Both times, the service was prompt and accurate. Be chill when you visit, cause every one else is. I wanna give more than 3 stars, but I can't forget its a higher end dive bar. Its the classier dive, which is cool so check it out and Talk to Daniel, the bartender. Great guy! Also, Lisa is wonderful as well... and pretty hot.
I haven't experienced any negatives yet. Check it out!
This is a Friday night karaoke review:
Totally trashy 40's and 50 somethings crowd. The bar looked like crap too, so it was befitting.
I stayed for 3 hours and only got to sing only one song, but I'm told it was particularly packed that night as there were two large parties. Also, the song selection sucked! If you want to sing a song that was created in the 21st century then you are out of luck! Also, the KJ's system is on CD. Get computerized already!
There is a new KJ there now. This dude seemed scattered and his sound system was crappy. I could not hear the singers very well, and what's the point of singing karaoke if you aren't going to be heard?
I won't be back.
Karaoke review..
Power outage in J-Town put my regular Friday night haunt out of commission.. So some of us regulars there.. being the karaoke whores we are ... decided to check out the karaoke here.
Karaoke at Blinky's is on Friday nights. Stephanie, the KJ is A+. Keeps a good fair rotation, treats her regulars right, treats the drop-ins right, sings solo, does good duet-partnering and backup for you if you need it. Has an extensive, legitimate song selection.
Drinks are *cheap.* ... Like they *used* to be at my regular place..
Additional amenities include: a pool table, dart board, dance floor, and one of those gift lifting games.
Early evening ambiance is set by a 40+ age group crowd that includes some good singers, and an attentive but stay in your seat type karaoke audience..
The *after* midnight ambiance is another story... at least on the evening I was there, after midnight.. Santa Clara U kids started to flood in, started occupying the dance floor, clambered on stage for sorority group sings, started a little pool table action.. and tried to dance to *anything* that was sung.. Fine by me! Gimme a dancing audience any day.. Even tho I had already done Suavemente earlier in the evening, I did it a second time.. to much better effect.
So this was fun.. one of my favorite KJs, cheap drinks, energetic dancing kids later in the evening... only thing I would have liked different is.. the SCU kids need to learn some merengue or salsa moves and a few Latino twirls.. I mean standin' on the dance floor and kind of bouncing up and down to Suavemente is fine as far as it goes.. but if they could do some steps and turns.. it would look so awesome!!
A GREAT dive bar--that's right, I said GREAT! Â The bar staff is awesome and friendly, the regulars are quite a sight (ugh...), and some decent bands come around from time to time. Â Usually, the Santa Clara University students pack the place while school is in session. Â Watching them can be kind of fun.
It looks like the biggest dive in the world--inside and out. Â However, this place can really be a relaxing good time for those interested in having good drinks, hanging out with friends, and listing to some good tunes.
wow, what a dive bar! me and some friends were bored Sunday night before MLK day so we decided to come here. The place was practically empty - thought we'd just spend the night shooting pool, playing darts, pinball, or trying to win a stuffed animal from one of those machines with a useless claw (none of us were brave enough to try the chili in the crock pot).
But then we started talking to these two girls (sorry if you're reading this, you probably know who you are) - they were the drunkest sluts I've ever seen! I don't normally say that about women, but I'm sorry, they showed us their underwear no more than 2 minutes after we met them. I never knew a pool cue could be stroked, humped, and squeezed in so many ways!
The best part of the night was getting the stink eye from their sober friend before she dragged them out of the bar. and hearing one of them ask, "why do you have to be such a queen bee?" priceless.
Came in on Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving for "happy hour" with a colleague. Hmmmm... strange... not too happy. But bully for me, they were going to have karaoke. I have no idea if it ever happened because I finally split around 9:30.
I Can Say that the "friendly and attentive" bartenders that another Yelper referred to were obviously on their Turkey Day vacations, because the clueless blond that reluctantly served me was not only inattentive, but quite possibly hearing impaired or mildly retarded.
Perhaps she's never heard Martzen pronounced correctly, but after asking "What?" twice, I had to point at the tap and make a pouring motion, perhaps affirming the former hearing impaired theory... alas, she went over to the taps and pointed to something other than Martzen, giving more credo to my mildly retarded theory. She finally touched the Gordon Biersch tap but then walked away without a word.
She retreated to the far end of the bar where much to my delight she produced what appeared to be a clean pint glass. She returned, poured the amber refreshment, and abruptly set it down, turning to another patron (a mottled, stubbly looking fellow) and asked him how it was. He mumbled something unintelligible and she actually understood it. Either they are related or the brain damaged have a language all their own.
She turned to me and squawked out something about how it probably wasn't cold and moved to pour it out without letting me try it. I had to beg to taste it, and being so anxious to end what was seemingly a trip into some sort of twilight zone episode, the beer could have been on fire and I would have gladly accepted it.
Other than that, the natives that I associated with around the dart board were animated and friendly, and that made my brief stay much more pleasant.
I Can Say that I don't know why I would return as it's an out of the way, depressing little hole, but, never say never.
..i dug this place. Â i was introduced to it by a friend, and the people/bartender were generally pretty cool. Â Not much for decor, but if u hit it up with the right person, who cares. Â Anita (the dart champ) was alwayz a charm to talk to, and the regz (once they got to know u) were very cool. Â Plus, they had Rage Against the Machine on the otherwise country music jukebox. Â An undiscovered Santa Clara classic...and it's walking distance from the Claran (in case u get bored).
Still, it doesnt' compare to Brooklyn..(too bright, for one)..
other than thursday nights (people shuttle back between here and the claran), it's a typical dive bar.
the drinks are alright, but a couple times, my friends ordered drinks, you couldn't even taste the alcohol in it, but they went back and the bartender poured two full shots in each drink.
it's pretty bright inside, but i don't think i would ever go in there other than thursday nights. one time i walked by, on a friday night to pick something up from franklin mall with some friends, and there were these old guys making cat calls. creepy.
I don't remember much about the first time I went to this place a couple years ago.....I was already smashed but I do remember that the drink I got was pretty freakin' strong. It was packed and the crowd varied in age. Oh and I remember it being REALLY bright inside.
Went back a couple months ago cause we were bored of our usual hangout and also to see Stephanie (the karaoke lady) who used to be at Normandy House. It was much darker this time, with some druggies here and there. Not many people really, except for the druggies and a few who used to be regulars at Norms. The mixed drink I ordered was a bit weak and overpriced. The pitcher of beer my bf & friend ordered was tiny and way overpriced. 2.5 pint glasses for $16 is a bit much. Â The bartender was a sweet older lady who chatted us up for a bit. I didn't stick around to sing cause we couldn't see paying that much to get drunk. It was nice tho, to see Steph & a former regular or 2 from Norms.
+1 star for Stephanie doing karaoke
+1 star for the friendly bartender
+1 star for not having to wear sunglasses in the place
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