Queen of Sheba Pub II

Queen of Sheba II is everything you want in a dive: amiable bartenders, cheap beer, tree-patterned wallpaper, lingering holiday decorations and X Games snowboarding on a seemingly out-of-place flat screen TV that hangs above the vodka shelf. A workingman’s bar, it’s filled with an easygoing crowd that minds its own business but is more than willing to strike up a conversation when sufficiently prodded. Twentysomethings in jeans swill pitchers of Bud in the muraled pool table room, while the older guys sit on a line of stools running down the counter. They sip from bottles and occasionally quip about the X Games. Good boozing requires good music and Sheba’s jukebox boasts a mixed-up roster of pop (50 Cent, Alicia Keys), vintage R&B and soul (Gladys Knight, Earth, Wind and Fire, Jackal the Bear, Stevie Wonder) and Ethiopian music. If you’ve got game, there’s a weekly pool tournament on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. — proof of which is displayed on the trophy shelf opposite the bar. Score.