Midtown Happy Hour: Pan, a Hidden K-Town Gem, is Perfect for a Large Group
If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. Every week, our Happy Hour Correspondent posts about a different bar in Midtown that fits the Midtown Lunch mentality: unhealthy food, not lame (unless it’s lame in a cool way), and most importantly… cheap.
Have you ever found yourself in a quandary about where to go to happy hour when you’re choosing a place for a large group? You want to find a cool place, but you know if it’s too crowded, things can get awkward. There’s nowhere to sit. It’s not great for claustrophobic coworkers. You can’t squeeze into the bar to get a drink. And how do you split up the tab with 8 people? Buy rounds? Surely someone is gonna get the shaft. What about conversation? Can you hear the person a few feet away? Can you even hear the person right next to you? How do lightweight drinkers get food in their bellies so they don’t get too inebriated and embarrassing? There are so many questions begging answers before one can confidently suggest a good spot for a group.
Last week, myself and a few other folks (I won’t mention any names but many of them can be found on this page) found ourselves in this situation. Luckily, I had a great recommendation from Chris. He suggested Pan, a truly hidden gem in Koreatown that opens at 5:00 pm (entrance on 32nd btw. 5th and Madison, 2nd floor) and is so obscure I couldn’t find it listed on Google Maps. Even when I arrived it was a challenge to find the entrance which is not on 5th Avenue as its address on Yelp suggests. Then, even when I was standing at the front door, I didn’t spot it right away because the outside looks like an underground cinema.
Posted by jenjfen at 1:30 pm, August 31st, 2012 under Midtown Happy Hour.