We got into Savannah on a sultry Sunday afternoon around 1:30 p.m. After getting our bags and our rental car, we got to our hotel - the Hilton DeSoto - about 2:15. We went to check in and our room wasn't ready at that time. The girl at the desk said it wouldn't be long and they could store our luggage if we wanted to come back in about an hour.
Cindy was getting kind of hungry and we asked if there was any place around to get something to eat. The girl at the front desk said, "We have a restaurant here."
I said, "Yeah, but we're probably going to be eating there while we're here. Any place close where we can get a sandwich and a beer?"
She immediately said, "Oh, yes. Just right over there (pointing over her shoulder to the northwest) is a great little English pub." We went back out the front door and almost caddy-cornered from the hotel was a little pub called the Six Pence Pub (see map). The place offered outdoor seating, but the tables were full. We went inside and waited for the hostess to come and seat us.
We were seated at a small table just off the bar area. The place was about half full and they had the Indianapolis 500 on the television at the bar. A few people were watching the race, but mostly they were in conversation with one another over a cold beer.
The Six Pence Pub in Savannah is one of a family of three Six Pence Pubs in the Southeast. There is one in the Charlotte area at Fort Mill, SC, and one in Blowing Rock, NC. The menu is typical of what you'd find in an authentic English pub. They had the usual "Bangers and Mash", Fish and Chips, and Shepherd's Pie. They also had a series of burgers, sandwiches, soups and salads to choose from.
And just as nearby Chippewa Square was featured prominently in the movie Forrest Gump, It turns out the Six Pence Pub was featured in a major scene from the 1995 Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid movie Something to Talk About. The front window of the Six Pence Pub was where Julia Roberts' character saw her husband, played by Quaid, with another woman and a confrontation took place on the street across from the Six Pence Pub. I don't know if I've ever seen that movie, or if I did, I don't remember it.
I wasn't overly hungry after having a big breakfast at the Milwaukee airport, but Cindy has to have three square meals a day or she can't function. When our waitress showed up to ask us what we wanted, I just ordered a Smithwick's. Cindy asked, "What kind of pale ale's do you have?"
I said to the waitress, "You probably have Bass, don't you?"
She said, "We do, yes."
Cindy said, "Bass is a little too heavy for me."
The waitress said, "We have a local beer out of Atlanta called Sweetwater 420. That's a good pale ale."
Cindy said she'd take that.
The decor in the Six Pence Pub features a lot of dark wood paneling along with an antique tin ceiling. There are faux antique ceiling fans and lights hanging from the tin. The main dining room was long and narrow, making for a cozy environment.
As I said, I wasn't overly hungry so I went with the Tuna Salad salad - generous portions of tuna salad over a bed of lettuce. You got your choice of dressing and I went with a basic vinegar and oil dressing combo. Cindy also had tuna salad, only this was a sandwich. She also got a cup of Six Pence Pub's Manhattan clam chowder.
Cindy told me, "Take a drink of this beer." I took a drink and deemed it to be "not too bad." Actually, it was pretty good.
I said, "What was the name of that beer?"
Cindy said, "I don't remember, but we need to find out."
When I finished my Smithwick's before our lunch came, I asked the waitress, "What is the beer my wife is having?"
She said, "Sweetwater 420. It's a microbrew out of Atlanta."
I said, "I want one of those." It was very good. It reminded me more of a good west coast pale ale, like a Sierra Nevada, and it was very good for a warm summer-like afternoon.
Our food came out and I have to say the portion of tuna salad and lettuce leaves were perfect. It wasn't a lot of food, but enough to put something in my stomach. We didn't have much of an idea where or even when we would eat that evening, so getting something in the gut before dinner was probably pretty smart.
Cindy's tuna sandwich and Manhattan clam chowder was pronounced as "good". She said, "This was all I needed." Once Cindy gets to fading and needs food, she can be impossible to be around. This kept her happy and good-to-go for the time being.
The Six Pence Pub was a cool place. I thought of my neighbor, George, because he's big on old English and Irish pubs. I kept thinking that he would have loved this place. I knew we probably wouldn't be spending much time in bars during our trip to Savannah - there was going to be too much to do and see. But given the close proximity to our hotel, I knew we'd be back for a cold beer. The funny thing was, we never did. We found there were a number of good English and Irish pubs in and around the Savannah area for us to visit. But for our first meal in Savannah, we certainly weren't disappointed with the Six Pence Pub.
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