Beating Bakersfield’s heat and ‘global warming’ with $1 draft beer at Ethel’s

John Hayes is served lunch at Ethel’s in Bakersfield by waitress Lauren Evans.

The joke around dusty, dry, hot Bakersfield, Calif., is that folks should be grateful that it’s a “dry heat,” not like other muggy places in the U.S. “Yes, it might be hot today, but it’s a dry heat!”

Well, from the grumbling heard around town on most summer days, this Chamber of Commerce spin on Bakersfield’s “heat” isn’t working. Hot is hot, and folks aren’t happy. That is, unless you hang out at Ethel’s Old Corral on Alfred Harrell Highway, in the northeast part of the city.

You won’t find a lot of moaning and groaning at Ethel’s when the temperatures climb over the triple digit mark. In fact, you will find people cheering the thermometer in hopes it climbs over 105 degrees.

That’s because the homey restaurant and bar drops the price of its draft beer as the temperatures climb. When they reach 100 degrees, draft beer drop to $2 a glass. When they hit 105 degrees, the price drops to $1 a glass. The regular price of draft beer at Ethel’s runs from $2.50 to $3 a glass.

“It gives people a reason to be glad it’s hot, rather that just complain about it,” said Natalie Mears, the restaurant’s owner. As Bakersfield’s “dry heat” got hotter in July, Mears cooked up her “beat global warming” idea. She has made good on her offer at least six times this summer, including last week, when temperatures crested the 110 degree mark. While they have dipped again this weekend, if history tells us anything, there will be another heat wave before Bakersfield settles into the late fall and winter cold fog.

“One dollar beer tones down the heat. It’s not so much a drudgery,” said Mears, who has owned Ethel’s for about six years. She bought the business from the estate of Ethel Beeson, who ran it for about four decades until she died.

“It’s a fun thing,” said John Hayes, a lifelong Bakersfield resident, who retired from Chevron. Hayes stops by Ethel’s for lunch nearly every day. Hayes and other “regulars” said they have been eating at the restaurant since they were kids with their parents.

Ethel’s is northeast Bakersfield’s equivalent to “Cheers,” the television bar, where regulars hang out and everyone seems to know your name. But even “newcomers,” like Mike and Loretta Schield, who moved to Bakersfield in 1996, find Ethel’s enduring.

“It’s one of Loretta’s and my very favorite places,” Mike wrote in a recent e-mail alerting customers to the $1 a beer offer. “On a Sunday afternoon (and lots of other times, too) you will find Lexuses, Caddies, horses, tall pickups, bikes and lots of us commoners’ cars in the parking lot. [There are] lots of regulars and old-timers and young folks and kids, too.

“The place has a lot atmosphere and a lot of history,” he wrote. “You can just feel it when the country music cranks up.”

The discount beer offer is based on the readings from a simple thermometer hung on Ethel’s patio.

“There’s nothing fancy at Ethel’s,” Mears said.

Author: A version of this story by freelance writer Dianne Hardisty appeared in The Bakersfield Californian.