www.myspace.com/bankschannel
530 Causeway Drive Wrightsville Beach, NC 28480 910-256-2269
Banks Channel is the name of a waterway, and not such a clean one at that. "Are we going to Banks Channel?" causes confusion because people think that you want to go fishing or swimming.
We have tried several times to give this place a shot. The food and drink destination opened this winter with some fanfare and quickly died down to a lull during the summer. The reason for that, we think, is that the location is not well known outside of the beach. There has been a serious uptick in radio promotion recently (they are all over the Penguin), and the review in Star News was complimentary. The food reviews from the locals has been mixed. We decided to try it for ourselves, but we had already had some BBQ at a cookout and decided to just get the drink on.
What is it with all sourpuss bartenders around here. Damn. You are near the beach, man. Lighten the fuc
k up. Marketing research for bars should suggest that you hire women bartenders because men like that, and it makes women feel empowered that someone else is looking out for them. Simple.Once we got over feeling that we were doing the dude a favor by walking in there, we started to relax and have a great time. The old Savannahs has been update with a new bar in the back and new furniture, but the feeling of nostalgia for the old place was still there. They still have the small bar upfront and the extra room on the side is now a game room. But where the fuck are big high definition TVs? We thought this was to be a sports bar. Sports are to be viewed in HD, on big screens--no excuses! That is why God invented it and that is what makes people happy. If whoever owns that place wants to stay in business, they had better get their shit together and spurge on some screens. What the hell?
Once we chilled out from that, it was time to get down to some drinking. It would seem that this is the place to be during this recession. The daily drink specials are awesome, so awesome that we stopped being annoyed and walked over to the game room that had
a pool table, shuffleboard, and electronic darts. Who the fuck plays electric darts. Man, that shit blows chunks. A real dartboard--and you can charge to hand out the darts--would have been much more preferable. Then we looked at the shuffleboard and it had these metal rods sticking out of the middle to prevent you from using it without putting coins in. The best part is that one of the rods was missing. A game started up when we tried to get the weights through the gap in the rod, but then sourpuss came over and told us we would break it. A) It's not going to break. B) We are not paying to play shuffleboard when it is free at Kefi. Principles, man. Drunk principles.Anyway, we played pool for a bit then realized that we actually like this place. The reason for that is that it is like our own little private bar here on the island. Since no one else goes there, it felt really good to be able to raise hell without annoying other patrons. It's as if you were living in a mansion and you invited your friends over and you all hung out in the game room of the house. Perfect. That might not be the best thing for a new bar to deal with, but we loved it.
We took a quick look at the menu and thought that some of the food was just a bit too strange sounding for us to try. We'll give the food another shot when we're good and hungry. We are also interested in going back and checking ou the live music on the weekend.We'll see how that goes.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20090722/ARTICLES/907224002/0/NEWS?Title=Restaurant-review-Banks-Channel-elevates-simple-bar-food-classics
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