I got in an argument last night in a bar.
No, we didn’t start quibbling over some ridiculous slight, start flexing out man-egos, and come to blows just to prove our irrelevant masculinity.
Instead, I had an argument about something that REALLY matters: the best zombie flick of all time.
Yup, the bartender, Christian – aka The Dude or The Duder, and I had a hotly contested debate about the best movie about the undead of all time. While I couldn’t get over the confusion between 28 Days (with Sandra Bullock) and 28 Days Later (definitely not with Sandra Bullock), the other bar patrons joined in. Soon, the whole length of the bar was animated with zombie chatter. I even proposed they should have a Zombie Movie of the Week throughout October.
And that’s what kind of bar Ink is – you can go and goof around, be your weird self, and feel like you’re fully immersed with others around you doing the same.
I’d say that INK, located at the corner of 2730 N Street in midtown, Sacramento, is a long-standing institution in the capital California city nightlife scene.
It’s lasted this long because it embraces and celebrates its difference – and that of its patrons. So, how would I describe Ink?
It’s sort of like a late-night hangout comfort food tattoo crazy artwork punk alternative bar. With mac-n-cheese.
Is that something you might be interested in?
Ink serves an awesome breakfast or huge brunch (champagne!) on the weekends, plus lunch, dinner, and is open until 4 am to accommodate the drunk, disorderly, and wayward souls of Sacramento. (Do they ever close?!)
Their menu highlight is the mac-n-cheese but also a salmon BLT that will have you eating with your hands like a caveman, Hawaiian sliders, and a meatloaf sandwich that will make you think you died and came back just to pay your bill.
While they have plenty of comfortable leather booths to relax in while you eat or drink, the best place to sit for me is always the bar. There, you get a full view of the bold and colorful Dia de la Muertes murals on the walls and can watch movies on the big-screen TVs (many of the themed movie nights include aliens or outer space movies, old B-List horror flicks, or, yes, zombie reels.)
They even show some Sacramento Kings games, a testament to the fact that Ink is not just there to serve those who are so uncool that they’re cool and therefore judge the rest of us semi-cool people, but genuinely want to welcome all of Sacramento’s children. (And by ‘children’ I mean adults over 21.)
So, how did our zombie movie argument turn out? The British “Zom-com,” Sean of the Dead, and Zombieland (with Woody Harrelson and that dude that played Mark Zuckerberg in The Network) won high marks.
Next time, maybe I’ll go to Ink for a spirited debate on the best Sandra Bullock movie?
About Norm Schriever
Norm Schriever is a blogger, Amazon best-sellling author, cultural mad scientist, and enemy of the comfort zone. His work appears in the Huffington Post, Business.com, Good Morning America, The Anderson Cooper Show on CNN, NBC, MSN, Yahoo, Hotels.com, and media all around the world.
Norm grew up in Connecticut and graduated from the University of Connecticut, where he was never accused of overstudying. After expatriating to Costa Rica in 2011, he started traveling the world and documenting what he saw. He now lives in Southeast Asia, writing his heart out and working with local charities.
