Hope & Anchor is a hip bar and casual restaurant in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. It has lots of chrome and feels like a cross between a fifties diner and a fifties soda shoppe, a place where the food would be casual and the staff friendly.

I noticed that the menu contained a beer list but not a wine list, so I asked the waitress if I might have one.

"We took it out," she replied. "It was wrong."

I don't believe she meant that it was wrong to drink alcoholic beverages. I got the idea that there were typographical mistakes on the list.

"But you have wine?"

"Yes."

"Can I see some kind of list?"

"No."

"Is there anything I can see?"

"No list. You want red or white? I can tell you what they are."

"I don't know which one I want. That's why I like to look."

"In that case I can't tell you what they are. Too many."

I've never before been in a restaurant that sold wine but didn't want its customers to have any.

I ordered a beer. (They were out of my first choice, which meant the beer list was wrong, too.)

I also had dinner. I can report that the food was so mediocre there was no reason to regret not being able to drink wine with it.

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