Happy Hour Scene: Community Bar

​The Place: Community Bar
2703 Smith St.
713-526-1576

The Hours: Monday, Wednesday through Friday 5-8 p.m.

The Deals: Beers are $2, and all of the other drinks are $1 cheaper than normal. Tuesday is steak night, and on Wednesday, all tacos are $2.

The Scene: Community Bar has a new owner. Karen Racine of Absinthe fame spent her first night Wednesday as the bar's proprietor, bartending and mingling with other drinkers.

From the looks of things during happy hour, we hope she doesn't change much.

​Community Bar has the reputation as the anti-Midtown bar in Midtown. The place has a quaint feel, but there's plenty of room for big groups inside and on the bar's patio, which was packed last night.

The crowd was mainly the young professional type, late-twenties to late-thirties. We had one interesting conversation with a guy who worked in sales in the oil and gas industry. He had stopped at Community Bar to watch the Astros game and have a couple beers and tacos before heading over to El Patio.

The tacos seemed to be a big draw here. Community Bar has a lengthy taco menu on Wednesdays -- the meat is grilled out on the patio -- and each one costs $2. We recommend the Yucatan and the Bangkok.

And if you like Southern Star's Blonde Bombshell, you can pick one up for $2 during happy hour and have a great meal that's cheap.

About the only negative experience we had happened while we were waiting to use the restroom. A guy walked out and yelled at us:

"The lock doesn't work. Don't take a dump or else you're fucked!"

And maybe that's not all bad. Just a guy offering some helpful advice.

Conclusion: Community Bar's reputation is spot on. If you don't like Midtown, don't let it turn you away from this place.