The “local,” or why I love hotel bars

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George, taken by Kitty Bean Yancey

Every workplace I’ve known at has had its own watering hole – with most on the dive bar end of the spectrum.

In New Orleans, members of the media took guest stints behind the bar at Molly’s On the Market, serving drinks to an equal number of bikers, journalists and literary types on the edge of the lower French Quarter.

In Philadelphia, the venerable Pen and Pencil  - which bills itself as America’s oldest press club – met in not so grandiose surroundings; its headquarters were essentially two stories of drab, wood-paneled rooms that featured free hot dogs as a major selling point.

And in working class York, Pa., reporters and editors who were most decidedly “not from around here”  took an almost expat delight in the scuzziness of the White  Rose Bar & Grill (now regrettably renovated under yet another revitalization attempt).

At my current workplace located in the heart of the suburban office park Tysons Corner, the ”FAA club” gathers occasionally at the McLean Hilton. It’s not a particularly attractive place, built to offend no one in a way that doesn’t particularly interest anyone. An interior atrium that rises several stories? Check. Restaurant with unremarkable and overpriced food? Check. The general atmosphere is one that almost guarantees that a travel-logged road warrior might take a look, then glumly retire to their room to order in, turn on the TV and work on the next day’s Power Point presentation.

But look a little closer and you’ll see signs of life stirring under the corporate soundtrack. There’s George and Rick, amiable bartenders that not only treat their regulars well, they make the PWC consultant in for one night feel comfortable. There’s the camaraderie of the British Airways employees who have clearly spent too much time on the road together, as well as the loneliness of a KPMG partner who has clearly been away from his kids too long. It’s a microscosm of the business travel world.

For those of us who cover travel as a beat, the Hilton couldn’t be a better gathering place. These are our people, the ones who know their IAD from their ORD, and desperately try to avoid ATL. We tell their stories, we feel their pain (and the occasional freedom of corporate travel). For us, the Hilton IS the dive bar, where the liberally topped Sauvignon Blanc serves the same purpose as a Pabst and a shot, even though the patrons are watching their Blackberries instead of reading free city weeklies. It couldn’t be more appropriate.