Chicken sandwich at Happy Does (HappyDoesBar.com)
Restaurants, Gaslamp

New Arrivals to the Gaslamp Quarter

By Frank Sabatini Jr.

If only for its quirky name did Happy Does Bar first grab our attention. But we are also very happy to see that something has taken residency in the adjoining Fifth Avenue spaces left behind by the Gaslamp Strip Club steakhouse and Dick’s Last Resort.

Happy Does is the brainchild of Good Time Design, a hospitality and entertainment group that owns downtown hotspots such as Moonshine Flats, The Blind Burro, and Cerveza Jack’s. Admittingly, some of the provocatively named cocktails also piqued our interest: Happy Juice, For Funzies, and Just Because. And then there’s the concise food menu, which puts an appealing focus on fried chicken tenders served a few different ways.

A stone’s throw away on K Street is where national restaurateur and chef Misael Guerrero opened La Conde Latin American Cuisine. Guerrero’s menu reflects his vast cooking talents acquired ever since he started a garage-based sushi shop decades ago in his native of Sinaloa, Mexico. He then went on to opening a chain of Mexican-style sushi kitchens called Culichi Town throughout the U.S.

At this latest venture, look for a menu featuring tacos, sushi rolls, carpaccio, Peruvian ceviche, Pacific lobster, and grilled Tomahawk steaks—not to mention a hefty variety of tropical cocktails.

Lastly, we’re stoked about Madam Bonnie’s coming to Market Street later this month. The 6,000-square-foot restaurant and bar will occupy a 120-year-old structure that operated long ago as a hotel—and eventually a brothel, after it was taken over in the 1920s by Bertha “Bonnie” White. Her covert operation lasted about a decade until the city shut it down.

Madam Bonnie’s will crank out a variety of seafood and rotisserie meats while offering a full bar and a secret VIP booth.