Endless Summer Ends at Surf Bar

Sitting in the back garden of Surf Bar last weekend was not a beachy experience. Wind whipped through the trees overhead, and thunder rumbled in the rain-threatening September sky. Surf Bar is a bar that literally puts sand between your toes. Tiki paraphernalia covers the walls like barnacles on the bottom of a rowboat. You can drink things that come in cups shaped like 60’s beach girls, or are called a Williamsburg Sex on the Beach. Going to Surf Bar is supposed to be like going to the beach with palm trees, not getting the A train to Rockaway or the LIRR to Jones Beach. But in hurricane season, its shtick falls flat.

Funnily enough, Surf Bar used to go by the name Hurricane Hopeful. Over the past week, Hurricane Ike tore up Southern Texas, covering a whole lot of beach spots with toxic sludge as a parting gift. The stubborn Texans who wanted to just stay in their nice little beach houses up on stilts were told they faced “certain death.” Lots of islands the Beach Boys sang about in “Kokomo” probably got just a little bit rainy. Being “Hurricane Hopeful” doesn’t sound cute right now. And Surf Bar? Not so cute either.

At Surf Bar, the most lime Kool-aid tasting margarita you have ever encountered will run you $9. They have Tuna Carpaccio and Squid on the menu, but somehow you think that a sand-encrusted corner of the Williamsburg waterfront doesn’t seem like the most appetizing place to order those things. You stick with drinks, and try to pay your bill with American Express and they don’t take American Express. Someone got the Zombie drink and whatever was in there didn’t even get them drunk. You see people ashing their cigarettes in the sand, and promise yourself you’ll wash your flip-flopped feet with soap when you get home.

It’s not just that summer’s over. Even this summer was a bad one for beaches around here. Sharks attacked, lightning struck and killed at the Jersey shore, everyone in the Hamptons was obsessing over Christie Brinkley’s divorce instead of getting a tan. Maybe it’s global warming that’s causing all these hurricanes, and maybe the Jersey Shore was being smote by the wrath of God. But just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… it’s not.