961, Gemmayzé
Beirut, Lebanon
Beirut has several major concentrations of bars, pubs and clubs, and probably the densest are Gemmayzé (restaurants, bars and pubs with some nightclubs) and Monot (nightclubs and bars with some pubs). Few places remain from really old times, since a lot of the places seem to be constantly changing owners, names and interiors. During the time I lived in Beirut, one of the new places to open towards the northern end of Gemmayzé’s Rue Gourod was this place, “961″.
The numbers 961 constitute Lebanon’s country code in international phonecalls. But it’s also a brewery and pub. In 2007, if I remember correctly, it was chosen as the best beer restaurant in the Middle East. We were of course regular guests. I don’t mind if starts sounding like an advertisement (I’m not paid for it at least) but here you can see some of the diversity of options among their products.
The people in the picture are by coincidence. That night, a local NGO called Nahwa al-Muwatiniyya organized one of their series of public discussions on hot social and political issues, and so the place was fully packed with university students, professors, journalists, civil society activists, people from the youth sections of political parties, etc.
