I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread with good names for bar, pub, clubs and other social venues with style. What's the best social venue in your game?

There's something of a running joke across several of the games for my group involing a ubiquitous bar named, "The Diseased Whore". It was orginally "The Soiled Dove" but a non-native english speaker paid for the old rotting sign to be replaced..and you get the idea.

What made things surreal was when one of my players played the standard Combat Decker archetype in the Sr3 book. He was going to meet up with another PC, a former cop. Since the Combat Decker has the knowldge skill: Seedy Ork Bars 3, he wanted to meet at a seedy ork bar, namely, the Diseased Whore. Understandably, the cop hesitated, and asked if the Combat Decker knew any sushi places instead. I assigned a high target number, 10 or so, and the Combat decker rolled his 3 dice, for 3 successes. With that, "Beoke Baeshunfu" was born. A Seedy Ork Sushi bar. According to my Japanesse/English Dictionary, "Beoke Baeshunfu" is a reasonable translation of "Diseased Whore."

What's the most interesting place in your games?

This wasn't a memorable name, but a memorable bar - during a pirate campaign, the group had a meet in a stylish "pirate bar" (I don't remember the name, since I wasn't in the group at the time - the Bluebeard or something, maybe?) where a bunch of wannabes dressed up in archetypical pirate getup (complete with eyepatches and fake parrots) sat around sipping expensive concktails, listening to "pirate beat poetry" and, instead of clapping, they snapped their fingers and growled, "Arrrr! Arrrrr!" in their best pirate impression. I think one of the PCs with the combat monster flaw went beserk after waiting for the Johnson to show beat a couple people senseless. Ahhhh, such fun.

Port Royal Pain in the Ass maybe?

Once had a friend who went about collecting bars. He ran them as a side line gig. My favorite was always: Apathetic Diabetic Old Men on Rollerskates with a Remarked Propensity for Procrastination and Sloth. I've always wanted to see the sign for that bar

Spit & Clean

Owned by the troll Spit and the drawf Clean. It's a local pub/restaurant with pretty good clientel. They have fake wood and in the center of the bar there is a single berrglas standing on a shelf. If anyone asks them about the name the troll takes the glas down and spits in it, hands it over to the dawrf who then cleans it and then puts it back. All without saying a word.

Not great, but ultra common:

Rathskeller

Every town has one. I've even seen them with family nights (free drink for mom or dad).

To quote the masters...

"Broken Drum" (you can't beat it. From Terry Pratchet.)
"Tavern of Butt" and I believe it was "Stomp your Goddammed Head In", both care of Blackjack.

Of course, any combination of adjetives and nouns will suffice. Don't even have to make sense. Grab that dictionary and see what you come up with.

For my Columbia/Lancaster/Harrisburg Shadowrun thing, I've come up with one called Neon Blue Apocalypse. I wanted to name it after the Tool song. 'Course, after I named it, I remembered the Tool song was Eon, not Neon, but it stuck. I have another one named simply Bar, because the ill-educated ork owner never bothered to name it.

A specialty drink in all my SR games I've ever run has been the Meltdown. Feels like you're having one in your chest...

This works

for such names as:
The Idiotic Cleric Tavern
The Corrupt Quail Tavern
The Laughing Fish Hall
The Boring Staff Alehouse

and many more with a predominately fantasy and non-whore related bend.

Funny, there was a "Bar" in Atlanta for a while...

Was always partial to the "Rusty Nail" , "The Drunken Yak" and of course "Merciless Mings' Bucking Fest Bar and Grill"

I've had a bar in a game run by ex-nuns who lost the faith when they expressed as metahumans in the early 21st century called Our Lady of the Bottle. There was a whole backstory to the nuns that I never got to play around with because the players were only there for one session and left the place pretty beat up, but I've been itching for a chance to get those ladies back invovled in some way

The "Rusty Nail" is still on Buford Highway, if memory serves.

I haven't been into Buckhead for a while, but I do remember "Bar" as a rather tacky little drinking hole.

-Siege

The Rusty Nail is great, huge tacky pistol that smokes (when the manager remembers to turn it on)

A bar name that came from around my area, and that I've always used in my games is "Have a Nice Day Cafe". Complete with the angry smiley face and bad attitude patrons.

ATL has those too, I remember when it opened up... man that was an obnoxious sign...

A couple from when I was in Japan - and spent most of my free time and money...

Red Dawg Saloon
Flamingo's
Stagger Inn (my favorite)
The Office (the owner wanted men to be able to tell their wives "I'm at The Office")

and then there is (according to what i've heard)
The Blue Oyster Bar
(runners never seem to want to go in there for some reason)

Some more:

Y Knot Lounge
Styx (also a pool hall)
Blue Note (blues club)
Boot Hill Saloon (biker bar)
Frogger's
Bull & Bush (english pub, natch)

i guess it depends on the type of bar or club you're looking for - what kind of atmosphere and clientele, type of music, etc...a lot of them that others have already mentioned, like the "Rusty Nail" are either chains or just happen to have one in each city - i've seen about 4 different Rusty Nails in my travels...

You're not a badass until you've gotten into a fight at the Grizzly Grunion. Best place EVER.

Somewhere in Germany, not sure where, but by a base is a club called the metropol, my army friends called it the Metro Hole.

In Bangkok there is thermopylae which is a hot after hours spot. alot of the bar girls go there after work for "whatever", depending on who you are, what you look like, and what they feel like.

In other games I have liked Hell Nine, with 9 different levels. The deeper you were allowed to go the more rep you had.

Another game had The Afterlife, with three levels. Again, you had to be somebody to get in to the lower levels. In this club you had to be able to fight your way in and withstand any challenge to you being there once you did until you were established on a level.

Also liked the Jaded Mantis in Redmond Barrens?, the sign had the letters "tis" burned out so it was known as the Jaded Man.

There was Big Ed's Bowery in Jacksonville, NC. He had a noise making contest with the loudest table getting a free pitcher of beer. Imagine a platoon of rowdy Marines all banging their fists on the tables screaming, barking, growling, whistling, etc... all at one time in a little hole in the wall joint packed to overflow capacity. Now that was fun, drunken revelry.

There's a pool bar here that I've always liked the name of: Swimming (Well technically le Swimming)

I like the Stagger Inn, I'll have to use that one

We have a strip joint called The Library where I used to live....classic.

Ah, that reminds me: down the road here there's a Strip Club called, "The Booby Trap." The ads on TV go, "Get caught...IN THE BOOBY TRAP!"

I spent some time in Bozeman, Montana.

The slogan of the bar was: "Liquor in Front; Poker in Rear"

And just for the record, you can have gambling and drinking in the same establishment.

-Siege

That was on a Big Johnson t-shirt at least 10 years ago

Thanks-this thread actually helped me out with my current characters background!

"Livin'On the Edge O'the Night" (nice Iggy Pop song) a bar which opens after dusk and closes just before dawn (meaning opening hours vary according to the season) which leads to rumors of vampires hanging out there....

The Tide's Inn

a real place, a real hole in the wall dive maybe a mile from the New York coast. The artwork was originally palm trees but most of it blessedly disappeared into shadows and cheap paint work. they had beer, a few drinks and popcorn. and a "bowling" game that you did by sliding a hocky puck over the boards.

The two most mewmorable nights- someone started playing "they're coming to take me away" on the jukebox and everyone in the place started beating on the tables with rythem.

and when some dumpy middle aged types came by obviously slumming in a palcethey'd heard about from their kids. a late 50's something in a bright flower print sun dress trying to dance- not pretty!

The Blood & Bone was a 'floating' Orc & Troll bar I created waaaaaay back in a apa-zine I participated in. It was never in the same place twice, but kept near to Downtown Seattle.

One of these days I will open a night club in Berkeley CA called Club Baby Seal.

I have always loved the (canon) bar "The Murdered Mime".... because it's the only thing fit to do with a mime.

Why go for the traditional bar? Shadowrun uses Seattle as a basis, so why not go retro with a coffee bar? Maybe a dimly lit coffee bar with a live blues band (I actually know a place like that in Dallas). Then you could use the name I used in a campaign once: Has-Beans, Wanna-beans and Never-Will-Beans...perfect name for a Shadowrunner coffeebar

There are all sorts of services that can be offered at a place like that...

A few years ago not too far from Lake Erie there was a bar whose sign read

Third Base, Last Stop Before Home.

That always made me laugh

Also, in the town i grew up in there was

The Alibi room

and

The GasLight, which oddly enough burned down.

I went to a cool joint once called Propaganda. It was massive and all done up industrial like - riveted metal, cat walks, sirens/lights. Oddly enough, I was there for their 'Copa Cabana' night.

I've heard of a place in Kiev that is similar and has an APC inside. Inside the APC is a guy with two hip flasks. One with vodka, one with orange juice. You bang on the hatch, the guy pops out and mixes you - you guessed it - a screwdriver. That's all he does.

Theres a bar in Milwaukee called the "Safehouse" thats done up in a spy theme with all kinds of crazy cold war paraphernalia and secret passages and such. You enter through an unassuming door in an alley into a small lobby of an "export company", and when you give a password theres a bookcase that slides open to reviel a tunnel that leads into the bar. Inside they have all differnet rooms with AK-47s and RPGs and shit on the walls and paintings with eyes that move and secret booths that have two way mirrors so you can watch the dance floor and not be seen. The annoying thing is that none of the bartenders will tell you whats in certain drinks because "its top secret". And to leave you go into a phone booth and dial some number and another secret passage leads down through the basement and out into a different alley than the one you came in. Its pretty cool.

And here I thought the 'I Go Inn' and 'Le house de public' where funny... Club Baby Seal.... priceless...

after going to Gencon in Milwaukee for like 8 years, you'd think i'd have thought to mention the Safehouse...

they tried to make one like it here in Orlando, but it sux...

there's also a new spy bar in DC, but i haven't been to it yet - just read about it.

and kind of off-topic, but i've read about new bars where they have webcams and/or telephones at the tables and you can check people out and talk to them privately from across the bar. supposed to be for dating, but a concept like this would be cool for doing meetings with a Johnson, at least the initial meeting...just tell the runners to go to the bar and dial table "27" (the magic number)...

As it turns out the "Have a nice day cafe" in Indy has really good sasuage and biscits.

My team frequents a dump called 'The Quick and The Drunk' on 32nd Street in Tacoma, near the docks. Avoid the bar snacks - rumours say the cook is a ghoul.