Loteria! at Bar One Has Drinkers Trying Their Luck

"Alright, we have a winner!"

It's the first thing we hear before we even open the door at in North Hollywood. For a Tuesday night, we're not expecting a huge crowd, but we're pleasantly surprised when we walk in shortly after 9:45 p.m.

It's Loteria night — the Mexican version of the game Bingo, where numbers are replaced by pictures — and the bar's packed with twentysomethings with drinks in hand and colorful game cards before them. We admire the red velvet wallpaper and Prohibition-esque wall lamps. My husband and I remind ourselves that though we're still in our '20s, yet we can't help but feel like an old married couple out on a school night past our bedtime.

We arrive just in time for the break inbetween games, and the first round has just ended and the Solution's "I Have To Quit You" is blasting on the speakers. My husband heads to the bar and orders a goblet of Allagash Curieux, not realizing that at 11.5 percent, it's the bar's draft beer with the highest percentage of alcohol.

Feeling left out of the game, I head to the front to grab a Loteria card.

"Are you the keeper of the cards?" I ask a man sitting at the end of the bar named Herman.

"I am the keeper!" he exclaims in a way that leads me to believe the festivities are well under way. He hands me a game card, I grab some dried pinto beans to use as markers and head back to my seat. As we wait for the next round to start, I'm mesmerized by Bela Lugosi's eyebrows in the 1931 film Dracula playing on the TV in the corner.

Sometime before 10:30, the next round begins. Someone is announcing the rules, but I'm too distracted by the black and white movie's subtitles to pay attention (Reason #28 as to why I'm the worst bar buddy ever). I vaguely hear something about four corners, getting four icons in a row and blacking out the entire game card. My husband and I make an executive decision to just play it by ear.

"If you win, you must say 'Loteria' and you must say it loudly!" the announcer tells everyone, emphasizing on the "loudly" part. "You can even say it like a white person!"

Winners get $10 off their bar tab, he says, among other prizes, and he then introduces Herman: "The more you drink, the funnier his jokes yet!"

The game starts and Herman's calling out different objects and characters. "El Corrrazzzzón!" he announces as people either groan or cheer. "El Valienteeee!" After he calls out a few more, we hear someone yell "Loterrria!"

"I'm confused," I tell my husband. We're struggling to read the Spanish descriptions of the pictures in the dim-lit bar, and a young woman and her male friend sitting next to us overhear me. "Yeah, so are we!" they say.

We share our Loteria cards and she points at the picture of a ladder -- La Escalera. "You guys have that one," she says helpfully. "He called it out earlier!" 

I realize we've gotten beans on all four corners of our card. "I think we might've won," I tell my husband. The young woman next to us tells us they have four in a row, and we all sit together wondering what to do. Not wanting make fools of ourselves by announcing an erroneous win, the four of us shrug our shoulders and continue playing.

After Herman announces a few more times, we hear another "Loteria!" -- Someone had gotten four in a row, and now the challenge is to mark off the rest of the card.

By now, it's 10:45, and we're antsy for the game to end. The bar's Tuesday night energy had caught us off-guard, so when the final "Loteria!" is called out by someone at the front of the bar, we can't help but feel a little relieved, yet somehow defeated as we head out empty-handed.

We head back to the front and hand Herman our card, and he expresses disbelief that we'd be leaving so soon. As we walk back to the car, we resolve to return with tougher game faces and more friends. There's always next Tuesday and next time, we'll be ready to yell "Loteria!" when the timing is right.

Bar One is located at 12518 Burbank Boulevard in North Hollywood. The bar is open nightly at 6 p.m.