How they are still in business? Keeping the bar afloat is a mix of undiscerning college students, a few hard-drinker regulars from the neighborhood and tourists like us, people who wanted something new and took a flyer on this dump… people who were hungry on the West Bank.
Why did we stay? I watched myself do it.
Ignore the floor, light tan epoxy with a smattering of varied brownish flecks that mimic coarse sand. It looks fine but every step reveals something sticky.
Ignore the windows that had not been touched in a decade. The sun struggles to penetrate the dirt. Except for a brief moment when the potential of the room could be seen in its warmth, the sunshine was no match for hideous rusty reds that clashed with cranberry crushed velvet chairs, a touch of faux sophistication that looked out of place in the grime. Ignore that too. The grime.
Four inches of dust has collected on the exposed ductwork. So if for some reason you got passed the entryway where a mop is occasionally slung to clear a path of white hexagon tile, only accentuating the dirt on either side of it, you could not miss the crud over your head. It would have raised questions. What about the kitchen?
Before you got to the bar to place your order, you would have left.
My first job was as a babysitter. I was twelve going on thirteen and earned a dollar an hour for watching my niece. I eventually moved on to the neighbor’s kids and then families who placed classified ads. Then there was a newspaper route. I inherited that from my brother. I eventually followed him to Happy Joe’s Pizza. I think he followed my older sister. The three of us worked at Happy Joe’s together for a stretch of time. I often rode to work with my sister. She wore Tabu. The smell of it puts me in her dark green Ford Pinto on Highway 44 between our house in Rapid Valley and Campbell Street.
At closing time I would wipe down the red plastic booster chairs that little kids use to sit at the table at a proper height. Every night. Needed or not. I remember this whenever I’m out and I reach for the Tabasco where the sauce has caked around the cap and threads of the bottle. I’m afraid that something gross will fall into my eggs. I wipe off the bottle with a napkin. And then I tell Brian about the boosters. Who’s managing this place? Not my brother. Not my sister. They cared. Nobody here does.
Why did we stay?
Thrift shop curtains on cheap wire shower hooks can have a certain funky appeal, but in this case it fails. For one thing, the drapes are too long, too heavy, too dark and awkwardly hang jammed behind a row of seating. Likewise, the colonial vintage chairs might have been a nice touch had they been coordinated with anything. Had anyone bothered to polish their spindles and dusty rungs, they could have been charming. Instead these treasures are forced to be out there in the world in their neglected state. It’s hard not to feel sorry for them.
Where is the pride?
The only sign that suggested that anyone cares about anything in this place was literally a sign. A chalkboard advertised music on the weekends and an open mic on a slower day. Indeed, as we sat at a high top with our beers, a guy with a guitar was getting ready for a gig. Forgetting about where I was for a second, I thought we could come back after the show down the street and give him a listen.
We did not.
The food was okay, but does not make this place a destination. Actually, that’s being generous. Why can’t I be honest about cold french fries and a grilled vegetable sandwich that shouldn’t have given anyone the confidence to open a restaurant?
I see the musician talk to a woman whom I take to be an employee. Was she the manager? The booker? Unlike the guy who emerged from the kitchen with our food, she appears to have washed her hair recently. Her personal tidiness makes me suspect apathy toward the joint, cynicism versus ignorance or poorly executed ambitions. Their exchange reminds me of Diane? Was that her name? She managed Paddy O’Neil’s Pub in the Alex Johnson. It was a piano bar before my time. When I was there working as a cocktail waitress they had a stage for live music where mainly solo acts did covers:
You can’t hide those lyn’ eyes…
and…
We’re caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
and…
Set out running but I’ll take my time
A friend of the Devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight
I just might get some sleep tonight
It’s nothing like it used to be. The last time I was there, video lottery machines took up the space and the swanky lounge on the other side of the hotel lobby had been replaced with a sterilized coffee shop. I think it was part of a chain, but I don’t remember for sure.
I don’t know why we stayed.
I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to do your best.
Why are there places like this?
Is it like so many other things where the market will determine the minimum requirement to capture an audience? Why spend the money to spiff up the HVAC system when it doesn’t change how many beers you can sell? Why make it nice for kids who have confused cool with borderline health code violations? And those guys at the bar drinking domestic tallboys and slurring their words at 4 o’clock? They will be back tomorrow. So there’s no need to wash the plastic dome cover to the display of monster chocolate chip cookies that sits next to the cash register as if it’s supposed to tempt annyone. They don’t care. You could scrape off a pound of grease from it with your fingernail and they wouldn’t care.
How do they stay in business?
I don’t know why we stayed.
We shouldn’t have made it passed the front door.