No, you don’t have to drive to Pasadena or Orange County if you’re looking for an upscale, eclectic night out. Just head for Harvard and First in the Claremont Village, and you might imagine you have entered an entirely different terrain. “Where everyone knows your name…” Yes, it is a little reminiscent of Cheers for the “educated” crowd.
Personally, I quickly weary of the average bar experience in which the masses of football and hockey fans crowd around an obscenely large television, guzzling beer by the pitcher.
Plus, who wants to drink and drive an hour back home? I don’t. After working all day, I can appreciate winding down in a local, laid-back, and surprisingly sophisticated Inland Empire environment.
So, I go to the Press. It is “the place to be.” There are other popular local pubs, restaurants, and bars, but they wane in comparison.
Upon walking into the Press, I see several people I know: a professor from Mount San Antonio College, the Publisher of The Circle Magazine, a neighbor, and of course, John—who works at Scripps college, and unfortunately, whose last name I don’t know—who is an amazing artist and frequents the Press as much as I do.
Initially, I plant myself in front of the bar, escaping the chill of the night air, sheltered by the warmth and quaint charm emitted by the atmosphere. I order a lemon-drop martini, floated with a little Chambord—my regular favorite at the Press.
Rich, the bartender is talented!—He tosses a shaker in the air with one hand and catches it with the other behind his back and then squeezes a lemon over the mouth of the shaker. Next—vodka, with a good shake. He pours it into an oversized martini glass and drizzles a little Chambord over the top. The magenta color of the Chambord slowly homogenizes with the translucent lemony yellow.
Looking to my left, I see the band setting up onstage. Jazz tonight. Blues tomorrow night. Pop-punk on Friday night. I’m lulled by the melody floating from the guitars of the Baldy Mountain Jazz Band, which the Press has booked for the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month. The restaurant/bar’s collection of bands, though, seems almost endless, highly talented and very up close.
I look to my right and notice my fiancée walking in through the door. I smile. He suggests we get a table closer to the band.
We walk up to the podium situated next to the wall which divides the restaurant into two semi-separate areas. The waitress, a young woman dressed in black and adorned with black dangling earrings, takes us to a table a mere ten feet from the band.
She hands us menus. My fiancée orders a Newcastle and the ever-so-famous Press Fries—a mix of yucca, yams and kinnebec potatoes—for us to share. I glance around and notice other couples sitting at tables adjacent to ours.
Couples both young and old sit listening to the band, chatting and laughing about their day while others, engrossed in the company of one another, sit quietly, holding hands across the table. Romance abounds in the small displays.
As I twist my head to gaze outside, I see the locals are massing, flooding out onto the sidewalk with a hundred thoughts to share. Poli-sci, biology, and art students chatter like birds who flock toward a common goal: having fun while becoming educated. Professors sip Chardonnay and grade papers. Musicians who aren’t even playing tonight filter in and out throughout all hours of the night, providing a certain rhythm to the comings and goings of the Press. Artists and writers dazzle strangers with their creative perspectives. 
The Press has that quality—camaraderie on numerous levels. It takes local people from many walks-of-life, puts them in one place and, like the shaken martini, produces something wonderful.