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I never was a regular here, but I've had some good times at the Silver Lion. One night after a matinee show at Bottom of the Hill, I ended up here with a squad of drunken friends. After consuming five or six big Buds we were treated to dollar lap dances by a hard living and habitual drug using middle age lady. Not sure if I actually partook in the the dancing for dollars, but i sure did witness some hip shaking, ass grinding action.
Another time, a friend of mine became so entranced by a young lady's exposed thong as she leaned on the bar, that he reached out and unconciously ran his index finger along the exposed undergarment. Clearly this is unacceptable behaviour, which became clear to him when the woman's angry & mustachioed lady friend shoved him in the chest. Ever the peace maker, I stepped in and asked what my friend could do to make up for his error. After some debate, it was concluded that he would have to, as a show of supplication, lay his exposed penis in the hand of the angry lesbian. This he did, and after giving it a testing squeeze, she declared it, "average white guy dick".
In any case, the silver lion will be missed greatly. Unless that tapas bar that replaced it has big Buds and the loudest metal juke in the east bay.
Nite club, is this the in place to be, Nite club, what am I doing here
Nite club, watching the girls go by, Spending money on...
I won't dance in a club like this
'Cause all the girls are sluts
And the beer tastes just like piss
~nite club by the specials (http://www.youtube.com...)
It is closed! boo hoo... head to The Avenue http://www.yelp.com/bi...
And a sweeter piss you'll never taste. The bar wenches are taking no-shit cool and having more fun than working. There is a tendency for guys to outnumber the chicks. Meg and I counted 28 guys to 6 'sluts' but a mere 15 mins later the girls were only down by 3. People filter in and out all night long. I showed up once at midnight with 3 people there and by half past there were 20 odd people having a good time.
It only takes a fiver to monopolize the jukebox as the financially challenged clientele are to busy scraping for cig, tat, and reefer coin. It's not a bad idea too if you want to keep the megadeath (half the crowd) fans from utilizing the box.
What kind of jukebox you ask? Well if internet jukeboxes hadn't been invented this may be the best jukebox in the bay area. While not up to Gusoline Alley (http://www.yelp.com/bi...). in Royal Oak, Mi it does earn honors They could trash some of the speed metal but I fear it may be used when I'm not present. The time might come when they have to think about putting in a Internet Jukebox thou. Put Nite Club or the Pogues on and be prepared to see a bar wenches come alive.
Whiskey, Beer, Clean glasses and fun alternative friendly atmosphere. Girls in dreads, straight guys in leather and piercings abound.
i WILL dance in a club like this. Most definitely. Jack, you Proved Your Love by bringing me here. We found some jewels on the juke box and you happily rocked the place with something other than the metal I barely tolerate.
The bartender was funny as hell to watch (white girls with dreads usually are) friendly and quick with the gin. The crowd had that "lets all get fucked up" attitude. And we did. I swear eddie vedder was standing directly behind me, but Jack says no. Ok, I was pretty f'ed up. We weren't regulars, but were treated as such.
Ohh.. who wants to babysit for us every saturday night??: two above-averagely-behaved toddlers who appreciate choice Jack White or silverSun pickUps over Hanna Montana???? They're in bed by 8p and the liquor cabinets yours...
Hmm.... so I moved to the East Bay, sounded like a good idea and all until I realized that I was giving up any chance of ever getting to walk to a fun bar.
This is the closest to my house, and still a 20 block trek through a neighborhood that I wouldnt walk through after dark. That being said, it was fittingly dive-y (and not a new bar trying to be a dive like in the mission.) good 70s punk and metal playing, stiff drink, old school video games and patrons seemed to be general displeased with our showing up and were not friendly (think angry early 20s biker types).
Oh - one more thing... buffet - where?
So do you sleep on the floor of your coke dealer's warehouse in West Oakland? Is your idea of a 'good time' smoking cheap cigarettes and drinking pisswater beer while ruminating with your friends which new patches you want to sew onto your dirty denim vests?
Because if this stuff doesn't interest you, stay away from Biggum's! This is where all the bottom-feeders of the "OakxCore" metal scene go to slowly die and rot away.
Now, I'm not saying it's a bad place. I've always been the kind of girl who enjoys watching as a headless cockroach stumbles around for days as it approaches it's demise. Biggum's kinda makes me think of that.
What to say? Biggum's is approximately 340 steps from my bed and it has long operating hours. As far as I know, it has the best juke in Oakland. I'm not much of a Motorhead fan (the house favorite, apparently), but you have the option of popping in Otis Redding, Son House, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Thin Lizzy, James Brown, The Pogues, and an assortment of Motown songs. A good choice of music is very important in any bar. I only wish more proprietors would get a clue. The juke alone deserves 5 stars.
They don't skimp on the drinks and the prices are fair. I kind of wish they'd get some more beers because I'm a fucking snob, but all the options are good for the price.
I've never really seen anybody of any persuasion, drunk or sober, get fucked with at the Silver Lion. But I imagine if you actively and belligerently hate the Raiders, you probably won't find an appreciative audience.
It's dark at any hour and dirty, and a bar where you can hole up and forget about the bullshit going outside should always be this way. No more smoking inside, and that's a good thing. I smoke, but it'd get to the point where breathing became something of a mental chore.
Big ups to the Silver Lion.
My neighborhood bar, and it wouldn't be the same without the full divey-ness. Dark, smoky, and your range of Al Green, Black Sabbath, Metallica, or Johnny Cash on the jukebox to name a few.
The big screen TV is always showing the most awesome and ridiculous shit. Many memories at the bar griping about work & life; eating Mexican food from Calaca Loca or even the place a few doors down and washing it down with some Big Buds; throwing darts with JT, KB and the Lion King; wrestling matches by the bathroom and my FAMILY (not blood but you know what I mean) rolling in nearly any given night turns it into my second living room, if I smoked in it and had the same apt mates as I did 10 years ago!
When Carl, Chummy or Hector from Tattoo 13 come over it's never a bad time. I come here and spend hours, whether it's happy times or sad. it's my Cheer's, and it's definitely not for everyone.
RIP Shelley (a former bartender)- you are always missed.
Remember when you were the weird one in school and the jocks made fun of you for listening to punk and for the way you dressed? Well guess what, when you come to this dive, the jocks are dressed in black and look like crusty punks.
When I first went to this place, I liked the diversity (or so I thought). Oakland punks hanging out in a bar where older black ladies drink and were playing Fifty-Cent on the juke box. Wrong! The bitch of the bartender started talking shit about the music and killed the vibe.
2nd time-I am hanging with my girlfriend and some drunk starts
hitting on me. I wasn't in the mood so I didn't care to engage full on conversation. Drunko likes the bitchy vibe from me until I say the word "boyfriend". He calls me a bitch and leaves. I could care less but the whole atmosphere felt clicky with people clumped by the way they dressed. Also, no draft beer? What? Do I really care to drink Bud out of a can to hang out with people who are completely moronic?. It is straight up juvenile the way people act here- totally unfriendly and judgemental. Hey, what about the whole DIY aspect? Not here, you better go down to Hot Topic and get your studded belt and start getting bad tattoos if you want to be accepted here.
Time 3 and 4. Same shit. I was dragged there against my will and both times some jock-punk acted like he owned all the chairs and attempted to start trouble because my male friend was getting a chair next to this guy-
Time 5-We had friends from out of town, it was late and we didn't want to drive anywhere so we decided to stay in the hood. We went here and sure enough-same crap. So until a good bar like the Zeitgeist, not a diluted version like Bigums exists, I will stick to gettin my beer at Lanesplitter.
To sum it up: If you want a meathead testosterone filled atmosphere disguised in a misfits t-shirt, hang out here.
Girls go here to get into trouble.
I go here to watch Joe Elliot pour some sugar on me and my boyfriend.
I've seen a Simon Lebon look alike there, and the bartender offered to give me my whiskey for free if I didn't like it mixed with 7up...
It's wife beaters, smoke breaks and sticky chairs.
It's Budlight, dive bar conversation and street walkers.
It's all about hifalutin hookers, tight pants and the jukebox.
Yeah, girls get in trouble here.
But they're never alone.
I feared for my life upon entering this bar.
Ok. Maybe that's a tad bit dramatic, but I immediately got the feeling that this was a regulars type place. The regulars being local prostitutes, homeless guys and men who for some reason or another are carrying chains and quite possibly packing concealed weapons.
Can I say "packing concealed weapons" or does that sound too naive? Should it just be "packing" then?
Ok. fine. The folks sitting at this bar were definitely "packing".
There were other regulars for them to harass though, so we slid up to the bar and ordered a beer and a jack and coke. I never know what to do with whiskey, it always sounds like a good idea when I've had a bad day, but then I choose some boring drink like that. I need some whiskey suggestions.
Tangent.
Anyway. Strong, strong, STRONG drinks, so that's something they've got going for them. The Jukebox seemed decent, some Bowie, TRex and Johnny Cash, but where can you NOT here Johnny Cash nowadays? This place is also amazingly dirty. So if you want to get smashingly dirty type drunk, this might be the place for you. But make sure you bring a chaperone. This is not the kind of place you want to pass out and be completely defenseless in.
Also: I liked the bartender. She was nice.
I am holding a childish grudge against this place because of a silly exchange with a bartender that made me feel like I was back in junior high school and the popular kids didn't want me sitting at their table. I won't tell the story, it's not worth it.
Okay, okay... I'll tell it. It involved my ordering a glass of wine, which is not your typical Silver Lion drink order. I know this, of course, but I like what I like, and last time they managed to dig up some Sutter Home for me from some dank corner of the bar. But this time the bartender gives me a funny look, tells me she doesn't think they have any. I'm about to say, "no big deal, gimme a T&T" or something, when she cocks her head a littled and very snidely tells me, "We're more of a hard liquor and beer kinda place." (Translation: "What the hell are you doing here?")
My ego deflated instantly and I couldn't think of a comeback to save my life. Or a drink order! I just kind of stared dumbly at her until my boyfriend filled the vaccuum and ordered me something.
Yep, this place took me back to Junior High. And now I'm making it even worse, because I'm talking about one of the cool kids behind her back. I'm so totally screwed.
If you don't know about Bigum's Silver Lion. You most likely will not like it. If you want to get dirty drunk. Come here.
This is the only spot I could go and walk in drenched in beer, corn chips, siracha sauce and peanut butter... and still be welcomeed with a smile and a laugh.
No joke. If you think you are not ready then.... you are not ready.
It's trouble. It's dirty. It's full of dirty troubled people. And it's very comforting to me. The bartenders are great and the big giant Buttweisers make me ill, but I still love it. Big shots of tequila...oops I knocked over the nut machine again....My dog gets to sit at the bar. It's close to my house and a reliable place to make a new friend who you won't remember the next time you wander in or who you'll pretend to have forgotten because you told them waaaayyyyy too much.
Now that I live in Oakland, it's my Zeitgeist. It's home.
Biggums Silver Lion has no buffet. But there are loads of young kids with interesting hairstyles.
The bartenders are surly yet friendly, the jukebox has good music that the patrons occasionally get all ironic and sing along with, and the drinks aren't as bad as one might assume from the decor and the fact that everyone else is drinking giant budweisers.
Good times.
Why was this place listed as Silver Lion Buffet? It was known as Bigum's or just Silver Lion by everyone I knew. Anyway, I used to come here once and a while but was by no means a regular. Lots of metal going on in here which is fine with me and good people watching. Definitely a place where you can get drunk as early as you want but unfortunately there were often a lot of bad vibes, fighting, etc. when I would go there and that can put a damper on things. Fun people for the most part though. RIP.
REST IN puke covered whiskey poop PEACE
last night this guy, who happened to be my housemate's friend, told me about all the times he… Read more »
If you go here enough times you become one of two people: those who call it Biggums, and those who call it the Silver Lion. I am a Silver Lion person. My girlfriend and a couple of our friends are of the Biggums ilk. To me Biggums sounds like the name of either a really low rent, second rate Vegas casino that you might find some withering, wrinkled 50 year old hookers at and the inside reeks of stale cigarettes and last week's puke that didn't get mopped up or a really dark porn shop run by a guy named Youssef that has an arcade in the back with 2 or 3 'regulars' who hang out waiting for you to come in so they can solicit a little 'hands down your pants' action. The Silver Lion may not be the classiest joint around but it certainly does not deserve a name with such horrible connotations.
Anyways, good times here. I always give it up for a bar that sells those big bottles of Bud and has a peanut vending machine. Great jukebox too. And a great dart board machine, the kind where the dart board is plastic and has all the little holes in it. The big screen tv is almost always tuned to the Gameshow Network, and on one occasion there was 50+ year old woman who had seen more unfortunate years than fortunate ones yelling out all the answers to an episode of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and was getting really really mad when the contestants wouldn't get the question right. Like I said, good times here.
Good bar for big bottles of beer that you should be drinking on the corner in front of some Circle K in a trashy suburb. Smoking and talkin dirty to scumbags seems the way to pass the time here. There were some nice drunk girls in the bar and I can't understand why, I don't think it's a 'nice girl' kinda place. Which is clearly why we were there!
P.S. Has the worst jukebox in the universe and shots are not "Mission" priced or sized
I can't believe I never yelped the Lion. I chose to mention the outdoor seating, because half the time, during the day, there are a few guys standing outside of here or leaning up against the building. This is a get-smashed-any-time-of-day kind of place.
Who calls it Silver Lion Buffet, anyway? It's always been Biggum's Silver Lion to me and my friends. The only thing it's a buffet of is pierced, tatted, punk chicks who look like they could take on Biggum, wherever he is.
Go in here looking tough and you'll probably be fine. Go in here looking like a UCB preppie and you better be careful. "I'll be careful", you say? You'll be dead! This is the most wretched hive of scum and villainy you've ever Skywalked your ass into. And I love it. Even if Bud is pisswater. Order mixed whiskey drinks - Jack and Ginger, Jack and Coke, etc., you'll be fine.
Biggum's is great because when you ask them for a MGD they ask back "Big or Small?"
It was here that I watched the A's win their record breaking 20th game in a row and the 4 resident drunks and I all got free beer to celebrate.
Why do most of my best memories involve free alcohol at some point?
THE FUCKIN' LION.......no buffet
What can I say about the many sunny days spent in the Silver Lion. Thats right kids, real alcoholics drink during the DAY not late at night when all you trendy little shits are tryin to impress that hot little chick with your new emo haircut and pre ripped jeans...ha ha ha
The Silver Lion is a place fit for a KING. and with Budweiser's bigger than your head, a fantastic selection, of hooch and a dart board...how can you go wrong. PLUS a tattoo shop, burrito joint and a Walgreen's all right near by...If only I could rent a room upstairs.
Try the stoli suicide by miss Lori... if you think you get the nuts.....
"I don't know what the hell you guys are doing, but you cant do it anymore"
- What the bartender at Bigums said when my friends and I were pouring beers on our heads during Cinco de Mayo. This was after the fifth beer.
Here is a partial list of actual events that I have witnessed at Bigums:
1. A shooting (the victim fell into the bar and was abruptly kicked out for making a mess and being loud).
2. Your typical skinheads vs. gutterpunks mele involving smashed beer bottles into heads and a lot of blood, followed by a trip to the hospital for one of the regulars in the bartender's car.
3. A hooker being DP'd by two men in the women's restroom. I actually didn't see this one, but I was there when my friend Kelly stumbled upon this gem of human behavior. She then reports that one of the gentlemen asked her if she had a condom. Safety first, I suppose.
4. A streetwalker once wandered into the bar on my friend's birthday and agreed to give him a lap dance for less than one dollar in change. This is not the same lady from story #3.
5. I once brought a PS2 into the bar, at the owner's request, so that we could play Karaoke Revolution on the big screen. It was a big hit with those not cool enough to glare at us.
6. My ex-girlfriend once left her car here overnight because she was too drunk to drive. That night there was a riot at a nearby bar, and her car was smashed. Looking back on it, thanks for the Karma payback, Bigums parking lot. She turned out to be a bitch.
7. I bought a DVD of a movie that hadn't yet opened in theaters. It worked. Amazing.
I'm sure I'd have at least triple this amount of stories if I:
1. Actually spent time remembering
2. Wasn't blackout drunk many of the nights that I was at this bar.
Bigums is a nice place to go if you're looking to smoke some cigarettes, drink some Wild Turkey and big ass Buds, smell some gutterpunk B.O., head to Jack in the Box on Telegraph, eat some poppers, then throw it all up on your porch.
Yeah, its that kind of place.
Bleh. Drinking at home is cheaper and more punk rock, plus you can choose your own drinking buddies. I go to bars for atmosphere, not to wonder what the fuck is making my boots stick to the floor. They let you smoke inside, sure, and the drinks ain't watered down, but, well, when you aren't a part of the Bigum's in-crowd, you show up here feeling like the bartender is actually the host of a party you weren't invited to. The population of the bar is either: part of the aforementioned in-crowd OR too drunk to care. I myself was neither.
I'm hardly a regular, but I like having a place nearby where homeless guys pay for their beer with quarters. I know I'm not entirely welcome, but that's okay with me. Sometimes it's nice to drink a whiskey where nobody knows your name, nobody wants to know it, and in fact might start yelling at you if you look at them wrong. If Emily y. is right and Bigums is really closing, I think we all need to give Scout the collective finger.
why is this dubbed a buffet? if by buffet you mean endless booze, a room filled with ciggarette smoke, or maybe an ocasional pizza from down the street.. yeah this is a buffet...
otherwise i like to consider this place a good, OLD FASHIONED as ill get out, BAR.. this place is chill... no one seems to give a shit about the person next to em, everyone is there to do there thing..
Biker younger than usual people are hanging out here. We stayed here for one drink. I had a Maker's Mark and Coke. It was good.
This bar is the reincarnation of the now-burnt-to-the-ground O'Cayz Corrall, from Madison, Wisconsin. Probably my new favorite dump. Thin Lizzy on the jukebox, and Kessler's whiskey behind the bar. My pleasures are simple. Perhaps a bit too simple.
Often I find myself making last call and first drink of the day at this little known hole in the wall. Sunday brunch couldn't start off much better without the lion.
I ended up here one early Friday night with some buddies as we were beginning a night of what can only be described as drunken debauchery. It was divey, kinda dirty, funky and pretty much my kinda place. Best of all they serve 22 o.z. Budweiser. Fuckin sweet! It was a mellow night so far but the 22 o.z. buds were probably where the night headed south for us. This place was cool. I only wish the foos ball table was working. That would have been sweet.
My quest to find Erotic Photo Hunt in the East Bay ended here. It's the most fantastic bar game ever, and after moving to Oakland I was sad that it nowhere to be found. Bigum's came through for me. There's a lot of smoking going on here, but I'm willing to suffer a little asthma to get next to some hot 80s boob.
When you feel down-n'-out, you go here. Big Buds are the norm. I really like this bar a lot, although I don't go there often. Why? I honestly couldn't tell you why. It's edgy, tattoos all around. A little clicky but I'm not a regular.
this neighborhood is a changin'. bigums, a bar that has been in the neighborhood for at least 50 years, was given 2 weeks notice to get out to make room for a tapas bar or something of the like. it was one of the last great strong holds of the neighborhood. now get ready for the mighty arm of rockridge to reach down into temescal. bigum's will be sorely missed.
buh_bye silver lion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Neighborhood: North Oakland
Category: Dive Bars
Berkeley, CA
Category: Greek
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