El Phoenix Room - Boston

My friend Jorge posted this photo and I thought 'pink elephant'.

Only one place had one and it was in Brighton, Mass.

In college I drank in Concannon and Sennetts', a Commonwealth Avenue establishment with a mural of a naked woman riding a pink elephant over the bar. The dive offered draft 'ganseets at 25 cents and drinks for $1. A quarter bought three pinball games and got the same amount of songs from jukebox for two-bits. The regulars were Irish trolley drivers and the girls attended BU.

The Irish owners ran the El Phoenix Room, a Mexican restaurant up the short step of stairs. The old cook was a one-armed woman from Monterrey. I tasted my first tacos and enchiladas there. Rosa served the spiciest food in Boston for years.

It closed years ago.

There is no trace of the El Phoenix Room online.

Ah, the memories.

The owners also had a bar underneath the Forest Hills train station.

Another Concannon and Sennetts'.

Neither dive is there anymore.

Ah, the memories.