The Hoha

Music: Deviates

Come With Me- "Those who have suffered will understand that pain is welcome when its all you have left"


We all have our neighborhood bar(s) which is the go to place to drink, hang out, shoot pool, waste time, and play our own brand of crappy music. For me the Hoha is the beginning, middle, and end; it's the local spot for us locals of the Outer Richmond but strangers are welcome.  Many times the Hoha is my initial drinking spot where I start and end my drinking route. It's a good place to drink to avoid the shoals of people unlike North Beach or the Mission.  The atmosphere is friendly, usually, and the locals know each other being friends and neighbors.  I met a girl there by chance who literally lives across the street from me.
      The location itself is ideal, and it's hard to imagine it not there.  The Balboa theater is directly across the street, restaurants are conveniently situated on that long Balboa strip that runs from about 38th down to 34th, and of course the cafes, also present is the produce market, flower shop, salon, yoga studio, corner store, shipping/video rental store, bank, and a super strange yet random Egyptian nightclub place, which, for all I know, is a discreet meth lab confined within the walls.  On the outer wall is an illustration a Pharhaoh, and I swear on my unholy grave I've never seen anyone leave or enter the place. I frequently walk to the corner store or the Hoha and pass by it at night but not a single soul is present.  But I do hear Middle Eastern twangy music once in a while.
     It's so nice to be able to walk to a bar you like and walk back home.  That's the best thing, for me, about local spots, that and the people who make it possible.  To be able to carry my drunk ass home meaning hiking up a kind of steep hill. I've never been so intoxicated that I resorted to taking a cab home, and I'm proud of that.  The locals are cool people. I've met most of them but I'm bad with names.  Sometimes I think of them of a cast of characters in movie and the scene is the Hoha. The same faces appear and reappear like its all been pre determined.  The repetition of it all can be irritable yet that's what local must mean to a lot of people- the same old faces and the same old scenario, the old comfort zone.
    My old routine when I first moved here was to celebrate the (Black) Sabbath by going to the Hoha every Sunday morning for a bloodymary extra spicy.  This drink is a hit or a miss for me.   It just comes down to the bartender and each ingredient included. Luckily, my bartender, bless her heart, makes a killer bloodymary.  And it's the perfect breakfast drink too since it's a meal in a glass. I use to drink so many bloodymary's that I spoiled it for myself, which is something unprecedented in my history of drinking.
I've had many a good times at the Hoha like when I watched the Giants win the world series in 2012. Thinking back on it, it feels like a dream. The place swelled up with Giants fans cheering concentrating strictly on the game and ultimate victory.  After the game, people were sweeping the streets with brooms and making elated noises that even the Pharoahs heard.  Can we do it again?