Woody's - Cary, NC

A life long rule has been never to expect much from a suburban strip mall bar.
Get in, get out, go home empty and disappointed.
Plus, Southern cities are not known for old time corner tap rooms. Nor are passionate sports fans known to inhabit such places.
And usually when a bar has to bill itself as a "sports" bar, it usually disappoints.
So the first time I ventured into Woody's I was expecting bad wings, big brewery beer selection and cheesy sports memorabilia bought at a local KMart.
Not so. First off, any bar that serves Red Strip and Labatt Blue in ice cold bottles will get my attention. Couple that with the hot waitresses, great wings, both Buffalo and Jerk, and local Tobacco Road, Panthers and heavy Hurricanes memorabilia.
Most sports bars downplay the local NHL team in favor of more popular sports. Raleigh only has the Hurricanes. They are front and center.
The atmosphere at Woody's is real.
It is surely one of the better sports bars I have been in south of the Mason Dixon line.
So many strip mall bars could take a lesson from Woody's. There is no need to be bland and boring.

Lightning Jacks - Pasadena, MD

We had one simple request from the lady at the crab place we were about to leave. Where is the closet bar? (Not the cleanest bar. Not the friendliest bar? Not the most hospitable bar. Just the closest.)
That is how we ended up at Lightning Jacks. One of the guys in the group took one look at the place from outside and said, "Holy shit, we're gonna get killed". So we went in.
Only to be met quickly by a hostess who noticed we were not dressed like the biker/redneck clientele. And certainly not from the area.
Apparently, for our own safety, she escorted us to the empty back room to the furthest table in the farest corner.
It didn't take long for us to take a liking to the place.
At one point my old boss, a former bar bouncer, and myself went to the jukebox to find the gayest songs to play in an attempt to rile the locals. When that didn't work, we kept playing and playing "The Final Countdown" by Europe . Why the Final Countdown? I have no idea.
But it must have belted out over a dozen times that evening.
And as things got really kicked up, a fine local lady (I think) cornered me and somehow the conversation shifted to her walking into the bathroom last week. She stated she found one woman patron (the pleasurer) orally pleasing another female patron(the pleasuree) in the stall. The local apparently did not take a liking to what she saw. She then related she grabbed the pleasurer by the back of her head and commenced to smashing in into the ground yelling: "No cunt eating in my bathrooms".
At that point I had to stop her from continuing her story, gather the boys and politely ask her to repeatt her recent experience. Which she did, with much more flair.
I found on website where a poster wrote: "Somebody gave this 5 stars: It must have been some locals? If you like to be covered in smoke and walk on a dirty floor, you have found the right place. The crowd gets a little rough and downright ugly at times."
In my book I give this shithole a 6 out of 5 stars.