See also: From High Tea to Fish and Chips, Seven Places to Get a Taste of Britain in Metro Phoenix See also: Five (Surprising) Ways to Eat Like an Olympian See also: Five Must-See Summer Olympics Parties
The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! So grab a seat at a local bar and an Olympic TV listings guide, and raise a glass to the world's superhuman athletes.
Northside Bar at Whole Foods Market
In honor of the the Olympics' UK home, Northside Bar (in the back righthand corner of Whole Foods' Scottsdale store) features a "London's Calling Beer Special." Get twenty percent off all English beers during opening ceremonies on Friday, July 27 including Boddington's and Tetley's on nitro, or grab any English beer off the shelf to pop open at the bar.
Northside Bar regularly offers more than 30 taps and plenty of wine offerings, gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, tapas and charcuterie plates. Happy hour lasts from 4 to 8 p.m., featuring a dollar off anything on tap. If none of that sounds enticing, venture into the marketplace to pick up drinks, snacks or prepared food to enjoy by the bar's two 60-inch TVs. If the excitement of all the sporting events has you feeling extra competitive, consider going all out Supermarket Sweep style.
This proud English pub pays homage to its homeland inspiration with opening ceremony celebrations, which translates into a whole helluva lot of drinking and likely, shenanigans. While picking up the spirit in the midst of pub flare in the form of Union Jack and Olympic flags, be sure to partake in traditional pub fare pairings like fish and chips or bangers and mash. The kitchen regularly serves food from 11 a.m. until midnight Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
In the debate over quantity versus quality, why should you have to choose? Blue 32 Sports Grill offers both. With an impressive 28 flat screen high-definition boob toobs to peruse, no set of eyes gets left behind. Hours are 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. every day, with a full menu complete with all the pizzas, cheeseburgers, and buffalo chicken sliders you can eat, served until 1 a.m. Happy hour runs from 3 to 7 p.m. with half off all well and draft drinks and half off all sliders.
Prefer to watch the Olympics in (relative) peace, rather than at a giant party? Plenty of bars and grills in town are fair game. Take Boulders on Broadway, title holder of Best Sports Bar in Tempe from the Best of Phoenix in 2011, for example.
Unlike a standard sports bar that subsists off of standard American competitive leagues, Boulders is a watering hole for athletes of all kinds. Feel right at home with a diverse set of sports enthusiasts and active bodies.
BOB has six large screens and seven smaller ones to check out everything from swimming and cycling to triathalons and tennis on. A full menu features items like Southwest turkey sandwiches, pizza and calzones. Wash it all down with a selection of 30 drafts and over a hundred bottle varieties.
Calico Jack's throws its own beerlympics this Saturday to enjoy over its signature Tex Mex plates including questionable Gringo Nachos made with a base of tater tots and Fajitas Especial with marinated chicken or steak with red and green peppers, zucchini, yellow squash and red onions.
Call ahead to get on a guest list for drink specials, including $5 "running naked" drinks. We don't know what's in them exactly, but a quick Google search lists Jagermeister and tequila as two of the five ingredients. Yikes. Get more details on this Olympics party and many more via Jackalope Ranch's list of Five Must-See Summer Olympics Parties. Outside of opening day festivities, happy hour runs from 3 to 7 p.m. with $2 margaritas and Tecate drafts, $4 Bacardis and Gentleman Jacks, and more.
