The Checkered Flag Bar

Loved the guy cooking here but I heard they are no longer serving food under the new name.

Hey Unilocalers out there!!! This place has new owners and is going to be disgustingly sick. It’s now called The Willow Den. Do a facebook search for it and fan our page! Come check it out. Have fun.
The Willow Den

they are changing the place up as of 12÷14÷09. they are gonna bring in more bands, and are changing the name. same owner.
this place is pretty large, bigger than the goosetown spot down the road. there is a wrap-​around bar in the middle, and several pool tables on the side. there is minimal parking in the front, more in the back.
when i came in at 10:30 on 12/​13, they were closing up. the bartender, melissa, said they hadn’t had any real business all day. perhaps because it was raining steadily. she was super friendly. i was mesmerized by her ample cleavage, which included a large rose tattoo. she offered to stay open for us, but we declined.
since they were closing, the bartender recommended we head over to the red stag, where she said a particularly good bartender was working.
bud light was $ 3.50. no, i didn’t order that crap.

This is one of the best dive bars I have been to in a long long time. We went on Saturday for a friends birthday and had a blast! The live band (Danger Girl) was great, the bartenders were so friendly and the drinks were priced well, what else can you ask for. Oh and if you need your porn fix you can try to win it from the claw machine which is located right when you walk in the door. Gotta love it!

I came here on a random Thursday night for some drinks and karaōke with my soccer team. This is not a friendly bar. Even the bartenders were a little surly with us. And they pour a pretty weak drink.
I was about say, «Hey babe, if you are going to serve me with a scowl on your face, you might as well make my drink strong enough where I won’t care about staring at your leather faced scowl.»
But I was there with my co-​ed soccer team, in short shorts and high socks and the bar was surrounded by dudes twice my size in denim jackets, leather, tattoos, and hardcore facial hair.
Instead, I went over to the KJ and signed up to sing some rock. I got a couple bikers to look back a few times and one big dude even clapped after some Motley Crue, but in the end, my friends were ready to leave.
I bought another round and we stuck around for some more bad karaōke, pool, and inappropriate sexual stories.
We tried to make the most of it. But in the end, it was futile. It’s sort of like this story one of my teammates told me at the bar:
«So I went on this date with this guy the other night and he was kind of boring, so I encouraged him to took a few shots of tequila. So by the end of the night, we got really hammered and I ended up puking my brains out all over his kitchen floor. I had puke in my hair, on my cheek, on my clothes, and my breath smelled like a dumpster. But this guy still manages to make out with me and we kinda sorta get silly. The problem was, he had trouble rising up to the challenge and due to his performance anxiety it was extremely awkward. I tried to help with the situation, but even then, he was not properly equipped to entertain me even if I was sober. So yeah, in conclusion, I have had better.»
My friend’s little anecdote pretty much sums up my experience here.
I have experienced better.

This is the place of places to be when you dont want to go to goosetown and you live on the dodgy side of willowglen. I appreciate the jukebox but never had the privilege to see a live band. I love pool and shuffleboard and the checkered flag has both. drinks are priced well and the times i’ve been there, bikers were all around, makes me feel comfortable not being a cowboy or a hippy. «thanks david allen coe».

For a high functioning alcoholic this was new and potentially dangerous territory: a biker bar. So, a quick in-​and-​out recco mission was the name of the game. I’d passed this place many times but never had the cojones to go in. But it was a quiet mid-​week early evening and I figured, why not? Why not indeed? Considering I was the only person there in a sports coat, I thought I held up my end of the bargain pretty well… ordering one drink at the bar and staring intently at the TV screen in the hope of not engaging in conversation with the sozzled bloke next to me. All in all a fantastic experience and I will return for a more in-​depth brush with the San Jose biker community at a later date. Perhaps when I’m not so conspicuous. Or sober.

Tell me how the hell i spent part of my NYE here. This place is a straight up biker bar. I don’t have a bike (well I have a bicycle… it’s pink… I’m pretty sure I would get my ass kicked if I rode it here), and I don’t know any bikers. Moving right along, my girls talk me into seeing a really cool band here (The Pendeltons sp?). Anyhow, the drinks were STRONG, the crowd was rough… but I have to admit, I did enjoy myself.

Amazing Dive Bar with a Great atmospher! The bar tenders are friendly and the owner is always there and great to chat with. If you like a place where people remember you and your favorite drink, then this is the place to go!

Great dive bar!!! Clientele is not just bikers but a mixture of interesting characters who are in the neighborhood. I have a friend who lives down the street so we’ve been a couple of time. Good cosmos and the prices are good.

I’ve never tried the food here, maybe since I always come here around 9pm after eating at Aqui’s a few blocks down from this place. This is the place we go to drink with my professor and a bunch of other students that want to unwind after finals.
Drinks are cheap and they have several good beers on tap. If you like hanging around people who ride cruisers this is the place to be. There’s old racing memorabilia hanging on the walls and a few TVs that always has sports on.
My friends and I have a great time playing shuffle board, this is the only sports bar that I’ve seen with one of those. The pool tables are kinda old but they’re still playable. They also play music you can dance to from country early in the evening while you’re getting your drinks on to hip hop when you’ve got a good buzz and ready to shake that ass!