Wallingford’s Seamonster Lounge is a boozy lagoon, rife with alcohol and sea-themed enchantment. The billowy ceilings are swathed in sloping tides of fabric and the walls sparkle with a wash of shimmering turquoise. Each night, live bands perform from a baluster palisade, and behind the musicians, a menacing ocean mural of deadly sea creatures elicits a creeping horror. Grab a happy-hour Pabst ($2) or rum and Coke ($3) and immerse yourself in the mural’s graven sea-monster imagery: the suffocating beauty of a mermaid; the spiny puffer fish, turgid with poison; the relentless stare of the carnivorous squid.
Marti Jonjak—The Stranger’s fashion columnist—has a technical degree in apparel design and works in the garment industry. Her treasured casual-wear aesthetic is both glamorous and trashy, suggesting... More by Marti Jonjak