Conquistador

This past Thursday, I grabbed a couple friends and headed down to The Conquistador, a new bar on the 20th block of SE Belmont. I often walk by the bar during the day with Steve, but had yet to visit the bar. While the building appears newer on the outside, the inside had a really great 70's feel. I think this is mostly due to the great variety of thick amber colored light fixtures. The dim amber lighting reminded me of the upstairs of my grandparent's house that I was so afraid of as a child.

We just had well drinks, though they did have a fun cocktail selection. Drinks were cheap-average in price. The food menu is all vegetarian and I'm not sure if you would consider it to be south/central American food, but an online rumor has it that the chef is from Venezuela. We wanted to try something interesting and different like the empanadas or corn cakes, but once we saw a HUGE plate of nachos being carried out, that's all we could think about. So we ordered a very reasonably priced plate of nachos and for fun, a side of plantain chips. Both were very tasty with a lot of flavor. I'm not a foody, so there's not much more I feel like saying about the food, but it was good!

 The walls are covered in all things Conquistador. Most impressive, is the large collection of conquistador velvet paintings (probably at least 10 or more LARGE ones). They have a nice bar to sit at, as well as many large cushy and cozy horseshoe shaped booths.

Upstairs there is a decent sized lounge area with couches and cushy chairs, as well as a few pinball machines. Downstairs they have a pool table and a nice shuffleboard table.

The music was really great too. They had a jukebox of albums from the 60/70's that were FREE to choose from. NO money required to hear good music. A free jukebox is a rare treasure at a bar. Later in the evening they had a DJ playing a lot of good funk music.

Anyways, we had a lot of fun trying a new place. I really enjoyed the atmosphere at The Conquistador, and for me, atmosphere is at the top of my list. (i mean, you can get a decently priced well vodka tonic pretty much anywhere)  I probably won't frequent this bar super often, as it's about 14 blocks from my house (yes, I've become quite lazy, having many establishments on my block), but when I get my bike fixed, I might spend some time there this summer. (after all, it's only a few blocks away from my church, and church gets out at the perfect time for a Sunday night drink!)