Out On the Town: Hi-Fi Izakaya, Horse Inn, The Pony Club
Saturday Night in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Thanks to everyone who reached out last weekend to share their kind birthday wishes. I took the opportunity for a low-key, lone-wolf getaway to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a place I’ve been regularly visiting a couple times a year since the summer of 2017.
It’s funny that I’m pretty much exclusively called or referred to as “BT’ whenever I’m there. The only other person who regularly calls me that is my sister. I’ll answer to most anything but I’m generally addressed as Brad or BTP. But if Paul Thomas Anderson can be Paul, PTA, PT, or PT Anderson, who am I to complain?
Over the years I’ve developed some great relationships with local chefs and bartenders there and have a handful of regular spots I love to return to. Plus, a kind photographer friend offered to let me use his loft as a crash pad while he was out of town on a shoot. And did I mention it’s a stone’s throw from Beiler’s, one of the best donut shops around?
Rather than one big download of my recent Lancaster adventure I plan to break it up into more easily digestible bites, but I promise plenty of great food and drinks, starting with today’s road game edition of Out On the Town, featuring a visit to one of Lancaster’s newer, much-buzzed about bars and a return to an old favorite, who also has something new up its sleeve.
Also, Out On the Town, where I usually spend time focusing on a recent visit to one particular bar or restaurant, a sort of not-a-review review that’s a bit more detailed than the drive-by round-ups featured in The Lowdown, now joins The Lowdown, Dive Bar Jukebox, and City Guides among the regular paid-subscriber exclusive features (these are free to all from time to time, but expect to see these to be behind a paywall more often in 2025—even more incentive to upgrade to a paid subscription!).
And please note that beginning on Monday, February 3, 2025, the price of a monthly paid subscription to LAST CALL will increase from $6.00 to $7.00/month. If you’re already a monthly paid subscriber you’ll remain locked in at your original monthly rate you signed up with as long as your subscription remains active and current. But I do urge new subscribers to consider upgrading to the annual rate of $50.00/year as it remains the best-value paid subscription option with a yearly savings of $34.00 compared to paying month to month.
Learn more about complete Paid Subscription details and benefits.
—BTP
Hi-Fi Izakaya
At least four different people reached out to encourage me to check out Hi-Fi Izakaya, a Japanese-style bar that opened in Lancaster last summer. A trio of Lancaster industry veterans are part of the bar team there, including Steve Wood, the General Manager and Beverage Director, along with Benjamin Hash and Andrew “Beaker” Schultz behind the bar. Steve had recently texted me to invite me to stop by the next time I was in town so it was at the top of my list to check out.
I planned to swing by and grab a drink or two before dinner. I arrived 15 minutes before they opened so I walked around the block to hit an ATM and kill some time. When I arrived just before their 6:00 p.m. opening there was already a line of at least 15 people queuing up.
Hi-Fi Izakaya is part of Issei Noodle, a popular ramen shop, and is located through a separate entrance next door. Once the doors opened for business, the couples and groups waiting on line broke off toward the bar or to secure a table in the industrial warehouse-like space.
I headed to a pole position seat at the bar next to the Suntory Toki Highball Machine and was quickly greeted by Ben, who I hadn’t seen in ages. “Seems like the bar is the place to be,” I said. He nodded in agreement but sort of winced a little as he made a point to let me know the bar seats might not be the most comfortable option for me.
This immediately triggered memories of writing what is likely my most-read and most popular article I’ve written about being a big guy navigating the not always hospitable world of hospitality: “The Hidden Hospitality Hazards When You’re Too Big for the Bar.”
The team at Hi-Fi apparently hadn’t read it as the 16 barstools lining their bar were extremely narrow, leather seats with high armrests. Since last summer I’ve lost a bit of weight, and gained more confidence, but as soon as I tried to slide into my seat I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but I forced myself, out of determination and a dash of spite, to seem like there was no issue. Granted, I may have been in the minority among the many merry guests sitting courtside at the bar, but if the first thing you say to welcome a first-time guest is, Hey, this seat is going to be really uncomfortable for you, then why would you furnish your bar with chairs that are so incredibly uncomfortable? Even if I didn’t plan to head somewhere else for dinner later I already knew this wasn’t the kind of bar where I could likely be comfortable posting up at for the evening.
The extensive menu of the high-fidelity listening bar, with a live all-vinyl DJ on the boards, was broken into themed sections built around Hi-Ball Hits, Sonic Vibrations, Easy Listening, Experimental Jazz, and Surf Rock. They had a nice Sake list along mostly European wines, along with a number of beer offerings.
I didn’t have any food but their Sound Bites featured a ton of snacks to enjoy along with your drinks, ranging from Kara-Age Chicken and Beef-Chili Dumplings to Spicy Tuna Toast and Curry Fries