Week Eleven: Wings & Darts

This week, I decided to take some of Amy's advice, and do something less "cerebral". The plan, chicken wings for dinner and darts. I got my mom booked for babysitting duties a week in advance, so after turning the kids over to "grammy", Amy and I left for our night out.

One of the best places in Fort Wayne for chicken wings is Peanuts, although I hadn't been there in years. Back before I met Amy, Peanuts was a common gig for BroomPenny (the rock band I played in for a few years) and then RuleSeven (the rock band my friends played in after BroomPenny, but I still hung out with). I had been there with some friends a few years after all the band stuff, and while they still had awesome wings, Friday nights turned from live music to poker tourneys. I had read, recently, Peanuts had new management and were going back to live music, so added incentive to check it out.

All of this is well and good, except for when Amy and I arrive, around 7pm, the place was empty. For a moment, I considered leaving, but we sat down, ordered some wings, fried onions, fries and beer. It was well worth it. The wings were awesome and it was nice to be able to hear each other during dinner.

From there, we were off to Checkerz, one of my favorite places to play darts, but like Peanuts, I hadn't been there in years. I was worried the bar would be way different, so I was optimistic when we pulled into the parking lot and I saw a couple of dart boards through an open door.

Unfortunately, those were the only two dart boards and they weren't really set up for us to play without moving a lot of tables. So, feeling bad to just come in and leave, we ordered beers and hung out for a bit. There was a band setting up (even though I saw online there was supposed to be a band playing from 7:30 to 9:30) and college gymnastics on the TV near us. I could only take so much and started to feel the night turning south, so we needed to get out of there.

Luckily, I did have a Plan B. A place called Break & Run on the west side of town, boasting 33 pool tables and 22 dart boards. We gave it a go and ended the night playing darts!

Amy hadn't thrown darts in a long time and her arm was kind of sore, but she was a good sport (and hopefully had fun). We talked a lot about stuff going on with each other. I figured we would eventually play some pool, as all the tables were free (there was a $3.00 cover and a 1 drink minimum), but we didn't need any other games.

Things I Learned:

• Always have a Plan B!


• Local businesses can change drastically in five years. The clientele at Checkerz went from a biker bar with hard rock bands to someplace my grandparents would go to for a cocktail and dinner.


• Break & Run was pretty sweet. Its the only real pool and dart hall I know of in Fort Wayne.