Super Bowl Sunday in a City That's OK Without It

Subtitled: Third Bar's a Charm We hail from Colorado, home of the two-time Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos. In Colorado, even if you don't care about sports, you care about professional football. You especially care about championship games. (With or without John Elway.) And on game day, you care to park your car safely away from flammable material. But now we live in Los Angeles - a great city, to be sure, but not one that bothers much with the NFL. Oscar Night clears grocery shelves, but what would Super Bowl Sunday bring? We ventured downtown, on advice of Thrillist, to see what was what. The plan: park at Metro Rail, ride downtown, and gulp beer and fried food under giant screens at Trifecta. Not so fast, said the Avenue 26 park-n-ride. We don't take your fancy plastic. Cash only, bub. Back to your car. Forget saving the planet. Hope you saved enough for parking downtown. Oh no you don't, repeated Trifecta. Without reservations there's a 30-minute wait and a $50 minimum per person. Or you can stand behind the people standing at the bar. Quipped a clever hostess: "Way to plan ahead." Good luck here too, smirked Grand Avenue Sports Bar. "Maybe someone will share a table with you." Venturing on from these sellouts, we noticed an unusual attribute both joints had in common: quiet. No one was yelling at the TV. No one was color commentating from their beers. We heard the game and the occasional clinking glass. Not much else. (How... respectful?) One final attempt to salvage Super Bowl Sunday led us to Casey's Irish Pub & Grille. Table for two, facing the screen, no waiting, no minimum. Happy hour prices with $3 Guinness and decent pub food. Reminded us of My Brother's Bar, a favorite from Denver. Only quieter.