Elbo Room

647 Valencia

Tel: 552-7788

You’ve got two good reasons to check out Elbo Room on Tuesday nights: the photo booth, and Vivendo de Pao.

The six-man band packs the floor with what they call "soulful samba steeped in the funk-bone Gumbo." With Brazilian percussion, vocals, guitar, stand-up bass and alto and tenor sax, Vivendo de Pao are great to watch and better to dance to. Only in this city can you see such diverse talent in a neighborhood club once a week. The vocals are a little shaky, but it’s full-on soul with energy to spare.

Elbo Room, with it’s block neon letters outside, is on Valencia betwee 17^th and 18^th streets in the Mission. High ceilings notwithstanding, the downstairs is cozy. The polished wood of the bar encourages curling over a pint of Guiness, Newcastle, Anchor Steam, or any other of the draft beers. Besides red Campari and lime Midori, Crown Royal bourbon, Absolut Citron, and Bloody Mary’s with the real stuff--Worcestershire and Tabasco sauces--the bar offers sake. Even green slats propped on beer kegs as a bench along the pool table in back look clean and artsy.

A video projector plays old movies onto a small screen on the back wall. If you make it as far as the jukebox--worth a gander with Ben Harper, Peter Gabriel, Public Enemy, Miles Davis, Brand New Heavies, and Erykah Badu--you’ll find a semi-hidden, low-ceilinged room barely large enough for the second table in it. And back in front, a photo booth is built into the wall. For a cheap two bucks you can pull the curtain and pile in for an old-school strip of pictures. Where else but San Francisco?

The second floor is a completely different atmosphere than the first. Low-ceilinged and dim, it has the grungy feel of past sweat and dancing. The stage is raised less than a foot from the floor, so you can really get up under the band, and small tables at the perimeter close in the dance space. A bar in back juts out to make an island, and a pillared building support is plastered with stickers and newspaper cut-outs. Pinball machines line the wall behind the bar, and across the room from these is another pool table. It’s a small space for the considerable weekend crowd, mostly a mix of Mission and Noe Valley folks. The floor isn’t large enough for everyone to do the funky chicken, but for Tuesday nights with the Brazilian band and the photo booth downstairs, Elbo Room is a good bet for a good time.

Open 5 p.m. - 2 a.m.

Happy hour 5 - 9 p.m., $1 off all drinks, Anchor Steam $2

Band covers $4 - 5

by Jenny Pritchett

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