It's game over for Sports Depot

Just what we need more pizza. At least a sports bar is related to moving around a little.

I posted this at Boston Restaurant Talk too.

Fun story: In 2003, Sports Depot closed and became a second Captain Fishbones, a seafood restaurant in Quincy owned by Sheldon Cohen the same guy as Sports Depot ( http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-108659966.html ).

I wrote an e-mail to Mr. Cohen at the time explaining that I was disappointed in the change because I feel like there are tons of fish joints in town but very few dedicated to being an actual "sports bar". He wrote back and asked me to give it a chance and that satellite sports TV has really bitten into their existence as Sports Depot.

One year later in the fall of 2004, I noticed a sign over Fishbones touting the return of the Sports Depot! Ha! I found my archived e-mail exchange with Mr. Cohen and wrote him back with a joking "I told you so". He shot back that he was surprised I had kept the e-mail and that he appreciated having such a loyal customer and would buy me a beer next time I came in.

I hope this isn't the same mistake again. Much like seafood, it's not like there aren't a ton of Italian joints in this city...but still very few true "sports bars". Unfortunately, I doubt Regina's will fold as easily as Fishbones.

What made the Sports Depot great back in the day was that it had televisions that you could see from basically everywhere in the restuarant. From what I remember back (even the early 1990s) was that they seemed to have satellite TV and a large choice of sporting events. So you could come in on a Saturday and tell them you want to watch the Arizona/New Mexico college basketball game and there would be a TV in the place that would face a seat where you could sit and they would put you there. The TVs were on the smaller side though, and there was no HD of course.

Then came the age of HD large screen televisions. It then seemed like a lot of places were able to place cheaper, larger TVs in locations where you could also see a wider variety of sports as well. And it wasn't just "sports" bars that were doing this. Every bar was putting up 2-3 large HD televisions. So if you wanted to go out and watch a random college football game, you had a good chance of just going to your local bar.

And it could be me, but the food at the Sports Depot simply wasn't that great.

But there is a shocking lack of decent pizza in this neighborhood. Other than T. Anthony's -- which at its best is good-not-great -- the local pizza scene is dominated by crappy places selling cheap slices to stoned college kids. (The place that was where Azama Grill is now had a "420 Special" that came with rolling papers.) This'll be an improvement.

I could never remember the name of Captain Fishbones, so in our family, we always referred to it as "Fishy McSquidpants."