From the small parking lot, the blue, concrete-brick bar doesn’t look like much. The only hints about what awaits inside are the spray-painted clown’s mouth surrounding the front entrance and the clown-shaped bar sign that lords over Route 66.
Stepping inside Circus Room is like entering a different era. Vintage Ringling Brothers posters and clown décor cover the walls, and a lit display case housing a collection of retro clown figurines, smiling their little clown smiles, stands by the front door. An enclave behind the bar holds even more clowns. And when I visit the Amarillo lounge on a cold, mid-December night, even the bartender plays along with the theme, emerging from behind the bar to perform a circus trick of her own: two nearly perfect cartwheels.
Circus Room…