Locker 8 Sport Bar is located on the west side of town. The west side of Lancaster is a working class neighborhood, once populated by thousands of workers at the large glass factory nearby. Recent decades have brought slower times to the glass manufacturing business and consequently there is less income to be had from the plant. The west side remains a very working class neighborhood today, only not as affluent as once upon a time, and sadly the area’s reputation has suffered because of it.

Locker 8 Sports Bar is a corner watering hole that has seen a couple of management shifts in recent years, this current sign is fairly new and there seems to have been some small renovations. We got there fairly late on a Saturday night, probably close to midnight. This bar has a 1AM closing time. Many bars in town close down at 1AM. I am not sure why this would be the case, since most licenses allow for a 2am last call with closing time at 2:30. Perhaps it has something to do with liability, the one in the morning closing time my cut down on problems by curtailing that last hour of drinking. We settled onto bar stools and ordered drinks. The drink quality was average, I had a JD and coke, once again a mostly honest shot, and I didn’t feel cheated in any way.  The bartender was a woman and she was friendly and seemed a bit busy with the other clientele, who were laughing and seemed to be having a good time.

It was Karaoke night, and we got there right at the tail end of it. The last act was a man, obviously near the end of a long night of drinking. He finished up his song while my group chatted and tucked into our drinks. Suddenly the man who had just finished singing, was canvassing the bar patrons as to whether he should perform an encore. I was approached and he earnestly asked if I wanted to hear more. He looked so intent on one more song that I encouraged him to take the stage one last time.

Meanwhile, one of our party somehow got into a conversation with another very inebriated customer about cell phones. Most of our group have fancy smart phones with internet access and all sorts of goodies. I have no idea how this particular conversation got started but soon I was dragged into it because of my phone, which I was using to record a snippet of the promised Karaoke encore.  The gentleman holding forth, advised us he owned a $400.00 cell phone but for reasons not disclosed his “room mate” wouldn’t let him leave the house with it. Ok, not that any of us really care, but the man persisted to let all who would listen that his phone was cooler than ours. I thought his money might be better spent on dental care, since he virtually had no teeth. Eventually, I was able to disentangle myself from the conversation but my friend was still stuck. I later found out the bar patron with the phone had asked for my friends phone number, and was invited to his apartment later, ostensibly to see the vaunted expensive cell phone. Needless to say, the offer was declined with vigor. I doubt the drunk, toothless, cell phone guy even remembers. He was harmless enough though. We felt no bad vibe in this bar, just a sense of things being barely under control. As if at any moment the alcohol would finally cause all sorts of bad behavior.

The encore was, you guessed it, Free Bird. The dude didn’t butcher it too badly, but how classic is that? Country bar, late in the evening, rednecks singing free bird at the top of their lungs. We laughed about it quietly to ourselves and continued to enjoy our drinks. The atmosphere at Locker 8 is average American dive bar fare. Neon and mirrors behind the fairly well stocked back bar, some sports memorabilia on the walls. There were hightops in the bar area and tables in the side room where the Karaoke was set up.  While finishing my first drink one of our group came over and suggested I see the bathrooms. Now, you can tell alot about how a bar is run and what the average clientele is like by investigating the bathroom. If the mens room is in a state of disrepair, dirty and stinky, well, that indicates a lack of respect by the owners and the patrons alike. Don’t get me wrong, a room full of drunks peeing all night long is bound to make a mess, but if it is obvious the mess is never properly cleaned up on a regular basis, that is where the issue lies.

What was interesting about the mens room at Locker 8 was the door. Someone had knocked holes all the way through the cheap laminate door. It looked as if some bar fight had ended up with someone fleeing into the john and the enraged pursuer vented his violence on the hapless door. Or perhaps some jilted lover found refuge in the shitter long enough to turn his heartbreak on an inanimate object. In either case, there were large holes with views into and out of the restroom.

There were only a few couples in the bar while we were there and I do not remember seeing any unattached females. So it was primarily an adult male crowd. Of course at midnight it is unlikely to find unattached females in a bar environment. If you haven’t figured out who you are going home with by midnight, you might as well resign yourself to another night alone. Just as well,  really, you would hate yourself in the morning.

Locker 8 isn’t really my kind of bar, so I am unlikely to return, but with just a little work it could probably be a fun place to party. The element of just in control hillbillies with lots of alcohol was a bit disturbing but like I said we never felt threatened or in danger. Actually, folks were pretty friendly, just ask my friend who was propositioned by the toothless phone guy.

Ratings (scale of one to five)

Dive rating:5

Drink Quality: 4

Atmosphere: 2

Cleanliness: 3

Picking up a “date”: 3

Scenery:1