Brian C.'s Profile

I had to travel here from San Diego, and I had lost my driver's license and only had an interim license (paper)- a number of other rental companies said they couldn't rent to me, but a fabulous woman named Louise at Budget said it wouldn't be a problem.  She had me fax the license and she checked it out with their county police- turns out my license arrived in the mail before my trip anyway, but thanks for some sensible customer service from Louise at Budget!

Great specials, cheap but good, plenty of food- great rolled tacos with guac...

What makes this place exceptional is:

* Custom boot and backpack fitting- if you're going to do more than 3 or 4 miles, this makes a huge difference in comfort and avoiding injury.

* Top of the line products- I have to disagree with the other Brian about this... as far as I know, those big-box chains don't carry Gregory packs or Keen shoes- so if you really want the best gear, you need a place like A16

* Salespeople who know what they're talking about- they do this stuff and are trained by the companies that make the gear they sell... so you can learn a lot the easy way, not the hard way on the trail or wasting money on gear that makes life harder.

They book lots of solid talent... they have short open mic times on Sundays, only 3 minutes- Comedy Coop gives you 5-6 minutes.  Also, the non-headline comics at the Comedy Store can be more on the negative side, in my opinion.  

Don't get me wrong, it's fun and you'll laugh, but you get the occasional guy who gets super dirty for 15 minutes... if you're like me, you want to run out of the room when that happens.

Hey I'm biased because I'm a member of the 805 North Comedy Troupe that calls the Comedy Coop home, but there's a reason for that...

This place is super-supportive for new comics developing, growing, giving you opportunities to learn and network and get funnier. We're not in it to profit off the audiences that come to the coop- it's free!  We just want them to enjoy themselves.

It is a weird location, isn't it?  But most places in San Diego are.  Some headliners have come in and called it a "comedy rave", and founder Mark Whitney calls it "The Funniest Storage Space in America".

Anyhow, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, and blah blah blah, come check it out!  Saturday night is the most professional show for the public.  Thursday is fun if you like seeing the good with the bad.  Tuesday is for good comics to try out new material, so some of it works, some doesn't, but they're good people.

Enjoy!
Brian