We were disappointed early on during our trip to the Ragin Cajun for happy hour, realizing that it was not a place to go alone. We say that assuming that someone goes to a bar alone for two reasons: to get blind drunk or to hook up.
We didn't see anyone looking to do the same last night, sitting at the tiny bar at the 4302 Richmond Ave. location. About the only interesting thing that happened during our first hour at the bar took place when an older couple and their teenage daughter sat down next to us. The mother ordered a beer and poured it into a glass half-full of ice water, or maybe 7 Up. We're not sure, because the family moved to a table before we had a chance to ask.
That left us alone to nurse a beer, listen to the group behind us cackle about Dr. Martens coming back in style, and attempt to decipher the plasma screen television playing an endless stream of Super Bowl previews.
Ragin Cajun is a cool place, and last night when we got there just after 6 o'clock, it was packed with large groups of people. When the weather warms up, the outdoor area in front of the restaurant will be perfect for eating some crawfish and enjoying a bucket of beer. The bartenders are great, too.
It's just not a place to post up alone, if your interests are one of the two -- or both -- mentioned above.
Or so we thought.
After the 7 Up and beer family left, an attractive blond and her friend sat down at the bar next to us.
"That is so good," the friend said as she slammed down her beer. "The first beer is always the best!"
The women ordered a bucket of crawfish and bibbed up. Then, not long after the food arrived, a man with a shaved head and black shirt approached from the other side of the restaurant, placing his arms across the back of their chairs.
"You know," he told them. "I ate crawfish for the first time tonight. I don't think I did it right. I ate the whole thing. You two look like pros."
After some more small talk, the man walked off.
"Did you hear that?!" the friend asked us.
"No."
"Oh my god, that is not the way to pick up someone."
The man with the shaved head returned with a friend.
"Let's do shots," the blonde told the bartender, discreetly pointing at the men behind her to put them on his tab. "Water moccasins."
When the shots were brought out, the man examined his with a scientist's eye, and before he drank it down, he used a straw to perform a "litmus test."
"We're partying in the room back there," the shaved-head man said to the women as he walked off with his friend. "Come join us later."
It was a valiant effort, and the whole scene made us reconsider our notion of Ragin Cajun.
Whether these women could have been picked up or were there to get blind drunk is tough to say. But after many beers and a couple shots later, the friend told us at least one oral sex joke after the blonde ate an oyster.
And we were informed that oysters are, in fact, aphrodisiacs.
Happy hour at the Ragin Cajun runs from 5 to 7 p.m. on weeknights. Beers are $2.50, and liquor drinks and margaritas are a dollar more.
