Nite Hawk Tavern

There seems to be an obsession with Unicorns here on Unilocal.Unicorns are magical, unicorns are pure, unicorns fart rainbows…
Unicorns were so 2008. Wait, what? It is 2008? Well then. I must be way ahead of my time and, let me tell you, so is the bartender, Sandra, at the Night Hawk. She uttered words so magical they make the unicorns mystical purity seem like a cheap crack whore peddling services to a man just out of prison.
After handing me the strongest Beam and 7 I have probably ever had she looked me dead in the eye and said «Is that strong enough, honey?». As if that wasn’t mystical enough and if the drink wasn’t close enough to purity with the tiny splash of 7, she was saying these words for the third time. The THIRD time!!!
Each and every drink she poured her new customer came with the same boozetastic satisfaction guarantee. It was so awesome I even chose to ignore the fact that she was licking KFC off her fingers as she was pouring my bevies. After all, alcohol does kill germs!
By drink two there were introductions made. Harold and Ed and Jenny made me feel more than welcome in this neighborhood dive, telling me how long they had been drinking together. When I complimented them by saying they were true professionals at their sport Ed responded «I am not a professional, I am just not as sloppy as my counterparts». Nothing more needed to be said.
Add to this a few rowdy disagreements, a creepy angry dude that apparently is «much nicer when he is sober», a restroom that is called a powder room and has a black and white leopard curtain for a stall door, two pool tables, some nudie art and a general hatred of AC/​DC being played on the juke box and I think I just found a slice of dive bar heaven on Del Paso Blvd.

Yes, people have been stabbed and beaten to death right outside the doors of the Nite Hawk.
Yes, some of the patrons and staff have questionable dental work and speech patterns. A few. Not all of them.
Yes, this place is smack dab in the middle of Del Paso Blvd. and will not put people at ease who are used to the comfy confines of midtown/​east sac.
But if you want to feel like Tom Waits is singing about you during «The Heart of Saturday Night», then you should stop into the Nite Hawk.
Pool tables, shufffleboard, internet jukebox, etc. Standard barroom staples. A small library of paperbacks in a room off to the side Why don’t more bars in town have this? I guess the appeal of this place is $ 1.50 Olympia in a can served damn near frozen. One of the better neon signs in the city. A sense of community amongst the regulars just like any other neighborhood watering hole.
Kinda unfair to put down the Nite Hawk because the neighborhood sucks.
This place is similar now to what the Round Corner and the Hilltop Tavern were 10 – 12 years ago. Anyone who has been drinking around Sac for a while can attest to that.

Normally I try not to read any other reviews before I review a place… don’t want to be swayed you know, but I couldn’t help because I saw Wendy reviewed Night Hawk!
And I have to very respectfully disagree on its sketchiness. Then again, I’ve never seen it at night. And I didn’t see very much of it. Ok, so instead of disagreeing I guess I should say I’m adding an addendum. Or something. I dunno. Leave me alone I’ve had a really rough few days of work.
Anyways. I thought the Night Hawk was pretty f’in cool. They had a shower curtain for a door in the ladies room… I kid you not. Standard dive dcor, i.e. dark with lots of signs and stuff. And the COLDEST beer I’ve ever tasted, like, Ever. I commented it to the dude sitting next to me who must have been a biscuit away from 90 and he said, «yeah, they get in trouble if it isn’t.» Nice. Then we talked about his travels to Ireland and how pretty the castles were and it made me want to go to Ireland… when I win the lotto.
So, I dunno. I could definitely see this place getting rough and ladies do not come here by yourself, maybe only if meeting a group like Wendy, but this is not PG13 like Midtown Dives.
Ok, now I can read the other reviews!

Your odds of being stabbed go way up once you visit the Nite Hawk. Your odds of being able to score illicit drugs goes way up too. The odds of a lot of bad things happening ALL GO UP! I do not like illicit drugs or stabbings but I hesitantly came here for a Dive Bar Night. One of the vending machine games in the Nite Hawk has a toy crack pipe keychain. I am not JOKING! The bartenders were really weird… like «flipped out» man. I had some uncomfortable interactions with the guys behind the bar. The regulars at The Hawk were more than just a little sketchy. Not a good place to bring your wife or girlfriend. So if you like bungee cord jumping or leaping out of an airplane… this could well be the same sort of life-​threatening endorphine high one gets from that dare-​devilish type behavior. Okay and one last thing… Don’t Go Here!

Your first visit to the Nite Hawk Tavern could be your last. Do a quick web search and you’ll find stories about violence and fatalities occurring just outside the front of the bar. This place IS located in the Del Paso Heights area of greater Sacramento, so be forewarned that it is not the safest of neighborhoods.
That being said, I first discovered the Nite Hawk because I showed up early for a party/​fundraiser across the street at the Capoeira Arts Academy. The distinctively divey Nite Hawk beckoned us, since we had an hour to kill (no pun intended) and were in desperate need of a tall coldie. Turns out, it was karaōke night, so after a bit of lobbying, I convinced the karaōke guy to let me sing a heartfelt and tender rendition of Lionel Ritchie’s «Hello». I must have stunned the toothless bar patrons and lookers-​on with my blissful adult contemporary melodies, for after I finished, I still had plenty of time to calmly finish my beer and make good my escape. Apparently, my golden baritone neutralized any angry hard rock/​metalhead purists within earshot, and I was able to avoid the world-​class beating I had presumably earned.
The next day we heard on the news that someone had been stabbed outside the place.