A listening bar in Chula Vista

That's what I get for putting style over substance. I wanted to check out Tender Hooligan, the listening bar that recently opened on Chula Vista's Third Avenue. And because the place advertises a food menu, I thought I could get away with making it a food story.

"What's a listening bar?" you might ask. And if you do, then you're probably old enough to remember a time when there were still these public places to listen to music, called record shops. Those that weren't killed in the era of downloaded music, were mostly wiped out by the arrival of streaming music. Yes, a few remain, kept alive by stubborn, physical media traditionalists. But today's young people have had to dream up ways to make shopping for music at a shop make sense to them.

Listening booth #2 and the checkout counter

In the case of Tender Hooligan, that means filling a space partly with bins full of vinyl records for sale, partly with a cafe and cheap food counter, and—since we're already playing with archaic concepts—with a pair of British style, red phone booths outfitted with small record players. The idea being, you pick out a couple of vinyls from the bins, check out a pair of plug-in headphones from the checkout counter, then lock yourself in a phonebooth to listen to analog music without any kind of social media interference (unless you decide to post a photo of yourself doing this to Instagram.

The weekend I dropped by, the phonebooths weren't being put to much use, but I was determined to give it a try. I rifled through the record bins, having been instructed to stick to the open sleeves (i.e. secondhand records), and not to listen to the shrink-wrapped new merchandise for sale. After a while, I settled on something the Spotify algorithms never suggest for me: Earth, Wind, & Fire. I took it to the booth, then, after a few minutes of the record clerk trying to figure out why no sound was coming through the headphones, started listening. And feeling more isolated from regular life than usual.

The Tender Hooligan cafe counter and lounge

Outside my booth, customers gathered a few tables, on lounge furniture, and at the cafe counter, sipping beer, wine, and sake; chatting it up while a couple of barista/bartenders served up drinks, and a DJ perched at the center of the room rolled out a few tunes. So I guess listening bars have been around for ages; I've just been calling them bars.

A portobello mushroom rice bowl

But what I really don't get, is the food. A short menu of hot sandwiches and rice bowls isn't made in a kitchen, but prepared tabletop appliances by the same barista/bartenders, in between pouring drinks. And whether you order a bahn mi or a portobello mushroom bowl (each $13), they give it to you packed up tight in cardboard take-out containers. Almost as if to say: you're welcome to hang out and listen, but don't even think about eating here.