For all you West Side louts who’ve been hit upside the head by the idea — on a bar stool, at happy hour, only to never to see it through the morning after — listen up: Someone is going to take the shot. Someone is going to drink in every bar in Lakewood.
And we’re talking about a lot of bars. You can’t stand in the doorway of one Lakewood watering hole without being a long toss away from a similar establishment. But according to the fine print of Sam Bridgeman’s plan, he’s going to try and knock off about 50 bars in as many weeks. Not only is he going to booze his way through town, Bridgeman’s also going to write about it.
Bridgeman got the idea a couple of years ago, just a what if he kicked around with friends. Recently, he and his wife Kelly workshopped the possibility a little further, and soon enough they found themselves the designers of T-shirts and a web site. That website — Every Bar In Lakewood — went live a few weeks back, and it features dispatches from the 32-year-old’s glorious march toward tavern domination.
“I’m trying to do one a week,” says Bridgeman. “I’m also starting a diet, which is wonderfully ironic.”
Bridgeman isn’t a stranger to the written word; he runs a dog daycare center, and blogs regularly for Patch.com on canine issues. He doesn’t find daunting the prospect of translating each stop onto his list into an interesting read. “Each one, just because they have to compete against so many other bars, all have their own little niche.”
Even though he’s only hit two locations at this point, Bridgeman’s effort is already attracting attention. “This really is exploding a little faster than I expected it to. A week ago, I had a hundred views. Now I’m a 900. I was just invited to be a celebrity judge at the wing crawl next month.”
Which in the city of Lakewood is second in power to the Pope.
