Bar 35 adds modern watering hole to the new Hotel St. scene

I can't recommend taking a first date to Bar 35 on a Friday night. If you're in the market for a potential first date, however, I'll all but drag you there myself.

The popular 3-month-old mod-urban downtown Honolulu lounge, at weekend's start, can be loud, crowded and — though its cheerful staff is exceedingly apologetic — slow of service. A couple hundred casually dressy twenty- and thirtysomethings — a good number of 'em looking for a new love, baby — just about poured out on to Hotel Street on the early Friday evening I stopped by with a friend.

I'll forgive Bar 35 its growing pains. Its overwhelming success, after all, proves that lounges like it are exactly the kind of exuberantly cool dens of libation sophistication our city is thirsting for.

Wander the post-sunset streets of New York, Chicago and San Francisco and you'll find dozens of interesting little lounges like Bar 35, with more opening every week. The best offer at least one unique selling point — funky interior design, clever food and drink menus, eclectic entertainment or a complete lack of any of the above.

Bar 35 co-owner Dave Stewart envisioned a lounge with a menu of specialty beers and gourmet pizzas and an interior-design plan embracing what he called "modern minimalism," and he wanted it all downtown.

"Modern and clean is what I like. And I've never really had a chance to do that," said Stewart, explaining why Bar 35's interior looks nothing like his Asian-influenced Indigo Eurasian Cuisine a block away.

Bar 35's large main room boasts a behind-bar wall of warm red brick, balanced by opposing walls in olive and amber, and high pitch-black ceilings. Discreet track lighting, spots and large ceiling-suspended lamps offer just enough illumination for the lounge's room-spanning bar and several klatches of comfy leather loungers. A couple of large vintage speakers overhead wrap patrons in an '80s-friendly mix of Depeche Mode, Madness, The Cure and Tom Petty.

Bar 35 has a full spirits menu, a couple of sakes and ports, and a decent selection of non-California reds and whites. But we thought it downright criminal to ignore the lounge's 110-plus globe-spanning menu of bottled beers — especially at $3 a bottle at happy hour.

A couple of Rogue Dead Guy Ales and Mocha Porters went down well with a thin-crust Cantonese Kiss pizza for two ($9, see box). We wanted to try a couple other pizzas and beers. But with Bar 35 getting even more crowded and loud post-happy hour, we considered quieter downtown options for workweek commiserating.

Still, I liked Bar 35 enough to applaud its success, and plan a return on a slower night to sample what I missed. Selfishly speaking, I can't wait to see the competition it's bound to inspire.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.