Lola Lauri

Searching for some food and fun last weekend led Bob and I over to Shenanigans (on Lake Harmony Rd, off Rt 903). This place is always a fun mix of locals and tourists looking for an evening out.  We walked in at 8:00, just as the family dinner hour was ending, and the more “mature” audiences had not yet arrived.  Early evenings see families and groups of vacationers, eating on the deck out front or in the booths inside the sun room that affords a lovely view of the sky and the woods across the street.  Inside, the eclectic décor includes etched glass art deco mirrors, street signs from around the country, lots of televisions for the sports fans, and two full-sized classic Schwinn bicycles hanging from the ceiling.

Just a few steps up from the entrance is the etched glass and wood-framed stage, graced on either side with life-sized statues of the Blues Brothers. This stage overlooks the large bar area.  Doug and Richard are behind the bar, and they really know how to take care of the customers.  Ask Richard for his chocolate martini, it’s delicious and packs a wallop!  We decided to eat at the bar, where a few customers were drinking and waiting for the evening festivities to begin.

The menu has a wide variety of choices, from burgers and sandwiches to steak and seafood dinners.  Bob chose the French dip, which comes on a large, soft roll with homemade potato chips on the side.  I had the crab cake dinner with mashed potatoes and a surprisingly yummy combination of snow peas and roasted red peppers.  The crab cakes are firm and crispy and arrive drizzled with a lemon horseradish sauce that gives them just the right amount of zing.  If you don’t have a large appetite, order the crab cake sandwich instead; the dinner was too much for me to finish.  Friendly folks around the bar were enjoying other dishes and they told us you might want to try the seared tuna, or the Yuengling Lager pot roast, too.

At 10 pm on Fridays and Saturdays there is karaoke at Shenanigans, and the host will tell you “Karaoke is Japanese for tone deaf,” so go ahead and take a turn.  There are a couple of song books floating around, but if you want a song, just ask for it; they seem to have most everything.  The crowd seems equally pleased with the latest Rhianna song as they are with old Sinatra classics.  On this night, there was a bachelorette party sitting at the high-top tables by the stage, and these girls were having a blast singing together.  Bob sang “You and I” from Alice Cooper, and I did a terrible version of “Walk Like an Egyptian” from The Bangles, but it was a forgiving crowd and I got rousing cheers on the way back to my seat anyway.

Wander up the stairs to the right of the stage and you will come to the entrance to Boomer’s Nightclub. (There is also a separate entrance around the side of the building.)  While the front room is an upscale bar and restaurant, the nightclub is a bit run-down.  The fixtures (especially the bathrooms) are dated and worn, probably because of the rowdier and younger crowd that hangs out in here.  With a black-and-white checkered floor and shiny chrome-colored barstools, the 50’s diner-style room pulses with colored lights and loud music.  Smoking is allowed in the nightclub, so you may want to leave your coat in the car before the dancing begins. We wandered in at about 11 o’clock and the old-fashioned jukebox was playing not-so-old-fashioned tunes.  We ordered drinks (plastic cups only, here in the back) and admired the Poconos-classic heart-shaped hot tub sunken in the wall behind the bar.  Above the dance floor and around the back of the room is a 5-foot tall statue of Marilyn Monroe, her iconic white dress frozen in a permanent updraft.  Soon enough, a DJ began playing, and the dance floor filled up with a nice crowd.  When we had our fill of dancing, we moved further back and played a couple of games of pool before calling it a night.

Shenanigans really does have something for everyone, and everything that Bob and I needed for a fun night out.