Ven-A-Mexico



A local Mexican dive bar that apparently offers poker on Fridays and Saturdays (they certainly have a current poker license with the state). However, on Fri and Sat nights they become a rowdy Mexican hangout with loud music and dancing and they charge a cover charge to enter: $5 for women, $10 for men (whoops, everything's in Spanish there: I mean $5 para Damas, $10 para Caballeros). I chose not to pay a cover charge just to find out what the poker is like, so I haven't been inside.

Games
Unknown. Probably spread-limit, which seems most popular in the Mexican immigrant community for some reason.

Rake: unknown.

Game Character: Unknown, but almost certainly conducted in Spanish, as are the games in most of the agricultural communities in the Central Valley.

Wait Time: Unknown.

Shuffling: Unknown, but probably hand-shuffled

Posting: Unknown

Tournaments
unlikely

Jackpots
unlikely

Atmosphere
A noisy rowdy dive bar that looks, frankly, kinda scary at night. They've got a uniformed security guard posted at the door to make sure no one gets in without paying the cover charge.

Tables and Chairs: Unknown.

Neighborhood: On a rundown section of Front Street south of the main downtown. Soledad is a teeny tiny farming community and is barely large enough to have a sit-down restaurant, but has fast food because they're right on US 101.

Parking: Park on the spacious streets. No parking lot that I saw.

Smoking: Not allowed inside the building, due to California law.

Service and Comps
Well, they are in a bar...

Links and Notes

 * Nearest competitor is Cap's Saloon in Salinas, 20 miles north.
 * Visited by MarkT in Aug 2006.