Birthday Dinner Part 2 - Polite Provisions

From this...

(older image from discoversd.net)

to this....

What was once Kadan, a sports/dive bar on the corner of 30th and Adams is now a new hipster bar from the same people who brought you Neighborhood, Craft & Commerce, and Noble Experiment. Never having been to any of those places, I had no expectations  or comparisons when coming here.

This spot, which was conveniently connected to Soda & Swine was the next stop on my (early) birthday dinner with the Educator GF's...

Polite Provisions bills itself as "Manufacturers of Local Tonics, Elixirs and Cures". Very 1890's.  I kept wanting to look for dudes with a Rollie Fingers moustache. They can usually be found in North and South Park and points between, wearing skinny jeans, plaid shirts, and grandpa sweaters. Another variation is the "mountain man beard". For the record, we did not see any handlebar moustachioed men.

(1981 Topps image courtesy of bapple2286.wordpress.com)

Yes, I just showed my age since I actually REMEMBER Rollie Fingers! That's what happens when your younger brother is a baseball nut!

Haha, this photo was actually taken on our way out. We actually entered Polite Provisions through the back and got the last table.

All the waaaay in the back dudes...

Near the demo bar...which was unoccupied.

You can see better interior shots from Darlene's post (linked at the end of the Soda & Swine post). Great ceiling design.

Their menu -  The Draft list (see it online here). Beer and wine s well as old fashioned soda fountain drinks like Egg Creams and Milkshakes.

This is what we were looking for...the mixed drinks!

TORC ordered one of the beer cocktails. Since the Educator GF's aren't big drinkers, the "Punch Bowl" was out of the question but I could see how that could be one way to share mass quantities.

TORC and I were the only ones who got drinks with alcohol while K ordered a soda.  The drink in the front was mine, the Brave Companion  ($8) which had bourbon, fresh lemon, creme de cacao and vanilla gomme. The flavors were vanille with citrus and chocolate, although I couldn't really taste the chocolate. My GF's thought my drink was too strong, but I really liked it.

The drink behind mine was TORC's Foxy Cleopatra ($8/it's missing an extra "x", heh heh).

(image courtesy of bvikkivintage)

TORC liked her drink but I ended up, uh finishing it for her. Didn't want to waste it man!  Her drink consisted of sparkling wine with flavors of apple cider and cinnamon. It tasted like liquid apple pie and was very bubbly and  refreshing.

D had another root beer; this time she had the Virgil's ($3), a microbrewed (seriously?) root beer with flavors of dark molasses, nutmeg and star anise. It had an interesting spiciness to it. We liked the tiny cubes which seemed to keep her drink colder.

Our ice cubes were perfectly shaped. The bill came in a book that was scrawled with drawings and poetry (the open page below was not written by any of us). I was tempted to do some gangster graffiti but refrained.  Someone drew a rather crude looking penis on another page. It would have been better if it was actually funny like the drawings you see in the credits in "Super Bad"!

Although there were a lot of people in PP that early evening, it wasn't so crowded that the noise was overly loud or anything. A pleasant din, it was. Our server was super nice and we were able to get back to our car with a few minutes to spare on the meter.

PP is open much earlier than it's counterpart, S& S, which is 11 am. I would definitely come back here with Bert so we can try some of their other cocktails (their selection is pretty creative), like the Mayan Concubine and La Bonne Vie.

Recent reviewsand articles:
FSR Magazine (10/1/12)
San Diego Magazine
Thrillist(2/15)
UT San Diego (2/21)
SD City Beat (2/25)
SunDiegoeats (3/18)
The Minty (4/4)

Polite Provisions
4696 Adams Ave
San Diego, CA 92116
(619) 677-3784

politeprovisions.com

Time to GTFO and head over to our next destination for dessert only a minute away!

*"Foxy Cleopatra" is an obvious nod to "Foxy Brown" and "Cleopatra Jones", female Blaxploitation characters from the 70's played respectively by Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson. Beyonce (yes, THAT Beyoncew) played a character named Foxxy Cleopatra in the 3rd (and worst) Austin Powers installment, "Austin Powers in Goldmember".