The new owners of the Star Community Bar in Little Five Points -- Kahle Davis and Susan Pavlin -- have decided to take the small basement space that had previously been used for overflow seating and break it off into its own little boozy entity called the Little Vinyl Lounge .
On the menu: craft cocktails, spicy bar mix, roughhewn stone walls, spot lighting and a cool pocket of chill time. If you prefer the open air, a small patio waits invitingly for the thermometer to dip below 80. LVL is accessed not through the Moreland St. entrance to the Star Bar, but around the side, down the hill, adjacent to the blessedly free parking.
I tried this super refreshing Pisco Aqua Fresca from barkeep and herbalist Cara-Lee Scheinfeld, made with fresh watermelon, lime and enough of the South American spirit to know you had a serious drink in your hands.
I don't know how to say this last part without sounding intolerant, so I'm just going to come out with it: this is the first Atlanta craft cocktail bar I've been to that doesn't appear to have even one strand of hipster DNA in its genetic makeup. It's not a fedora/flaming orange peel/vintage glassware/tincture of bitters of essence of barrel-aged hoo-ha kind of place. It's a dark bar where you could sit and swig a Bud longneck just as easily as a Holy Water cocktail made with Asian cucumber and basil. It's the kind of place you want to go to at 4 p.m. or 1 a.m. It's a welcome little hidey-hole of drankin'.
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