Evangelos Cocktail Lounge

Just go in there and experience the place, if only one time. We wandered in on a Sunday night so our time there was short, but I appreciated the grumpy older guy bartending because clearly he had listened to far too many idiot customers crap in his life and he just doesn't really care for nonsense at this point.

Ask for a Budweiser and it will usually thaw his icy demeanor

I discovered Evangelos several years ago when staying at a friends house off Old Bishops Lodge Rd.  My travel companion, Nancy, and I were up and ready for a stellar Sunday August morning eager to bless the day with quality Bloody Mary's.

We were a little too eager it seems.  Even with the throngs of Indian market in full bloated swing , thousands milling around the square, we could not find any place , high end hotel or otherwise , to make us a Bloody Mary at 10:00AM.  We were about to give up and were making our way back to our scooters ready to head back to the house when we spied Nick sitting at Evangelos bar with an enormous pile of cash that appeared crumpled and disorganized.  We took a chance and opened the unlocked door and asked if it was possible to get the elusive Sunday morning Bloody Mary.  He told us that he was not really open but invited us in and made us some of the best bloodies I'd ever had.

An engaging surreal and wonderful conversation ensued as Nick explained the pile of cash, that looked like some kind of art instillation, was part of the previous nights take,  it had apparently been a very busy night!

An hour and a half and 4 bloody Mary's later we decide that we were sufficiently inebriated to suffer the crowd of Indian Market and walk off some of the liquor before mounting our scooters.  The Market use to be a celebration of cultural micro communities spiritually and naturally connected to their environment.  Now it is a celebration of the dollar, highly over priced and pandering to the tourist and rich Texans and Californians

Evangelos has some of the best live music and the crowd leans toward the local population,  making it a great place for impromptu conversations that can yield little known info on other local places and , of course, salacious gossip if your lucky.

For me Nick and Evangelos represents the kind of subtle hospitality that was prevalent before the billionaire glitz invaded.

Loved this place! Went every day of our stay to see Nico, the owner.  Great history, great guy! Not sure,what all the talk about him being a jerk is about.  He was very friendly, great pours on his drinks, bought us shots and was happy to see us.  Felt like we'd been going there for years.