Best Neighborhood Bar/Central

Tucked into the extreme south end of downtown Coral Gables, this unassuming ranch-style edifice next to the Knights of Columbus hall has been called the Crown and Garter as well as the English Crown before its current owners gave it a more prosaic moniker a couple of years back. In its latest incarnation as the Gables Pub, it attracts a youngish crowd (more platform shoes, midriffs, and chain wallets than you'd find at your usual Gables gathering place) with its low-key atmosphere, tasty food, and Bass and Guinness on tap. (It skews a little younger on Wednesday's ladies' night and a little smellier on Thursday, when the rugby players show up.) Two narrow inside rooms and the outdoor concrete courtyard filled with tables make it more of a place to hang out than to pick up or throw down -- unless someone's throwing down her last ficha in one of the pitched domino battles that have been known to break out. One oddity: Despite the fact that the gringo quotient is no higher here than anywhere else in the Gables, the jukebox features a veritable rogues' gallery of the worst and the whitest. (Styx, anyone?) Yet the pub is so otherwise inviting, the patrons don't run screaming for the exits.