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Entertainment

CLUB WATCH
HAPPY HOLIDAYS

West Seneca bar has enough happening to keep the fun going year-round

By BENJAMIN SIEGEL
Special to The News
9/1/2006

"Despite its rather humdrum interior, there's character on these walls."

Holidays 935 Harlem Road, West Seneca

824-8812

Scene: Volleyball league players and a few local stragglers

Music: Classic rock and a weekly DJ night

Drinks: Beer, beer and more beer

Dress Code: Whatever absorbs sweat stains

There's a simple way to keep your beachlike bar thriving in the winter months: Refuse to let the summer end.

For West Seneca bar Holidays, whose average neon-coated interior is complemented by two outdoor sand volleyball courts, that means not shutting down its active amateur leagues. Instead, bar owner Andy Pawelek Jr. encases the outdoor courts in a heated dome.

It's a good formula: Keep the players thirsty, the beer flowing and the leagues in full rotation. On a recent weeknight evening, the courts were enjoying a healthy crowd of about 50 players (not all young, either), while inside singing bartender Diane was entertaining the non-athletic among the clientele with her infectious smile and perky personality.

According to the bar's Web site, , league play costs from $215 to $390 per team (depending on the season and number of players), lasts 12 weeks plus playoffs, and includes free food and beer after each session. A menu of bar food and sandwiches is available for bar customers, as well - wings, fingers, fries and the like.

Of course, if you're not spiking a serve, there's fun inside as well. Despite its rather humdrum interior, there's character on these walls. You have to look past the beer posters and specials boards (of which there are many, enticingly enough) to notice the league standings and hall of fame plaques. You have to walk by the almost empty vending machine, home to a few lonely bags of pretzels, to nearly inappropriately bump the guy trying to use the minuscule bathroom. (Seriously, use some caution when opening that door. I almost became too friendly with a tall burly man whom I've since named Scary Dude.)

The character of Holidays is inherent in the lineage of the establishment, which links the young owner - Andy, 26, called "Junior" - to his father and uncle Leo. When Andy was 18, his father and uncle handed the bar over to him, and he has been running it ever since. A student at the University at Buffalo, Andy certainly knew a thing or two about the nightlife industry, but it was evident the night we visited that his management style is not just to keep things going, but also to develop.

Until just two weeks ago, the bar featured a weekly live music night with local rock and alternative bands taking the large corner stage. Now, Andy says he has decided to go with a weekly DJ night. (Workers were seen constructing a DJ booth in the back, as it happens.)

But ask Diane, the hostess with the mostest, and she won't have much to say about the place's history. She still emits personality, though. "I'm really shy," she says, "unless I'm drinking." (She wasn't very shy when we met her.)

If you go to bars to chat it up with the locals about the good old days, this isn't the place. If you need to get away but don't want to go away; if you want the essence of the beach without the hassle of pretending you're going to swim; essentially, if all you really want is to sit and drink and not be on your couch, Holidays is the place for you.

This may not sound encouraging enough if you're not the volleyball type, and perhaps it might not be your place if that's the case. But give me a happy hour, some chicken fingers, a waitress who revels in the chorus of a Killers song, and an accidental run-in with Scary Dude once every 40 minutes, and I've got all the entertainment I need.

© Buffalo News