Sometime around the end of summer Mutiny Hall popped into the fine space at 12th and 65th in Roosevelt. It had escaped my attention until my new commute took me past it every day and night. Last night I ventured inside. There was some rather innocuous art (birds and branches or something) on the walls and rather innocuous music on the house sound system. I did not recognize any of it until a song from the first Strokes album—which I have absolutely no problem with—came on. The bar/restaurant features multiple flatscreen televisions, which last night were all tuned to a National Basketball Association match starring the Los Angeles Clippers and the Chicago Bulls. Thankfully, we still had the music, and while most of it was a little too safe for sensible tastes, it was preferable to the chatter of sports commentators.

Spirits and ale supplies are plentiful. The server who helped me was friendly and professional, and told me that the proprietor also owns Hudson New American Public House and Collins Pub, and that he lives in the neighborhood. The menu is standard pub fare, somewhat above average, and priced as though it were somewhere around the 85th percentile. The Fish and Chips ($15) were fine, the fish not too greasy, and the tartar sauce was delicious without the unwelcome weight with which the sauce is often presented. The French fries were decidedly average and came housed in a cone constructed from rolled up pages of the Stranger. I had a Boundary Bay India Pale Ale (price not looked at) and a soda water.

When the bill came there was a two dollar charge for the soda water. Dear bartenders and dining/boozing establishments, please do not charge patrons for soda water when they are paying considerable markup for other menu items. Still I tipped 20 percent, but at $28 for a beer and Fish and Chips (after tip), I will not find myself dining at Mutiny Hall very often. Nevertheless, when the light rail station finally materializes, Mutiny Hall will be expertly poised to accept its weary, hungry, thirsty, and executive-class riders. This here owner is prescient.