003. [location: the fox and the fiddle] [before the house plot] now give us your sad, sad trip.
What someone like John wants in a bar is basically 'an establishment which offers the same ambiance as drinking alone in his apartment, only less pathetic.' Anyone who has met Jack Benjamin for more than five minutes could probably gauge that his preferences run more toward...well, let's say booths a person can sit in without fear of tetanus, for instance. But because Jack is also the consummate entertainer he has some understanding of what people like, and as such the Fox and the Fiddle is the kind of place that if it hadn't already already existed in Taxon, John would have had to invent it.
As one does. So this is where they end up - deliberately, at least on John's part - late in the evening on the day Angelus attempted to do gross and icky things to Petrana's jugular. Down a long flight of concrete stairs and into a cavernous wasteland lined by high, scarred tables, John waves at the bartender (an Extra with one and a half ears, nine fingers, and a cleft palate) and receives a mirrored gesture that's really just part of their functioning, but it seems to please him anyway.
See, they know him here. Already. Isn't that nice?