We walk into a restaurant and find a bartender

Twin Valleys Restaurant (and maybe Dunlap Sports Grill), Dunlap, California
Sadly, the horse outside wasn’t alive. It was a metal sculpture drinking from a trough with greenish water, but Twin Valleys Restaurant/Dunlap Sports Grill feels like the kind of place someone would ride their horse to. We were in the area to visit my brother (remember the wine and beer event at his Cat Haven?).

In this week’s post (and next week’s) we’re way more on the restaurant side of the restaurant-bar continuum. Still, Twin Valleys is one of the better options for beer and wine on the mountain, and we were able to ask willing, knowledgeable people the two questions we always ask in a bar, so that made us happy.

And the food, particularly the meats, was mighty tasty. Twin Valleys has their own smoker, which is a great advantage in the world of meats, and when you order one of the barbecued meat dinners, you have a lot of choices for the sides. With my pulled pork, I chose onion rings and barbecue beans. Texas toast and hush puppies are (happily) mandatory.

We had a good time with my brother. We’d planned to sit at the bar with him, but when we got to the restaurant, we saw Heather, a keeper at the Cat Haven. She was with her parents, who’d just arrived for a visit from upstate New York -- where her mom had been a bartender for years (why didn’t we know her in 2016? We could have visited!).

We are always happy to talk to bartenders.

Mindy and I boldly pulled our chairs up to their table, leaving Dale alone to order our food. Bob, Linda, Heather, and Walker (another Cat Haven friend) were exceedingly gracious about letting us interrupt their family time.

When asked what makes for a good bar, Linda gave the answer many bartenders give, “The bartender. Someone who's responsive to customers instead of standing there texting.”

Her husband, Bob, had a different answer: “Cold beer. If there isn’t cold beer, it isn’t a good beer.” (Sorry, England.) “A local bar isn’t necessarily a good bar. If you’re visiting from out of town, they may look at you like you have four heads.”

Heather said she thought it was about the atmosphere. “It’s a comfortable place that doesn’t exclude you, that’s not rundown, shady, or shabby. And if they have activities like darts and pool tables.” (Bob noted he was just there to drink beer.) Walker agreed atmosphere was important but said he thought it was about people.

Heather told us about a man that was a regular at the place her mom worked. Ray was a drunk, but he loved children and was kind to them. And he smoked a corn cob pipe (which by itself would earn him the designation of “character”). Linda said she’d set a bowl of soup in front of him, just to be sure he was getting nourishment. “When that bowl was in front of him, he couldn’t drink anymore, just eat the soup.”

As for what makes for a good church, Bob said, “That one’s easy; it’s the people that go there.”

Heather noted a particular person, “It’s about the best leader or pastor or priest or whatever. If the person is aware of their people.”

“But isn’t pushy,” Linda added.

Bob said it was fine if they’re pushy, “They can tell me I’m going to hell.”

Walker lamented that “at a bar, you can talk to most anyone. It isn’t that way at a church.” 

We were glad that it was easy to talk to Bob and Linda and Heather and Walker, and Walker’s right. Somehow is easier to talk to people sitting behind beers.

Bars we'll never walk into again

Church and State, Washington, DC

Afternoones, Staten Island, NY

Donny Dirk's Zombie Den, Minneapolis, MN

The Tank Room, Kansas City, MO

Hank Dietle's Tavern, Rockville, MD

While working on the book about our year of traveling to a bar in every state, one of the great moments of serendipity was finding a bar named “Church and State” a few blocks from the church where we were staying in Washington, D.C.

The bar was at the top of a dark staircase, and the decor was reminiscent of an old church building with pews, pastor’s office, and stained glass. The drinks, on the other hand, were all-American, focussed on ingredients from the Western Hemisphere. We really enjoyed chatting with various staff members, including the lobbyist-by-day bartender.

That evening confirmed our goal of visiting a church and a bar in every state, and we were encouraged to think we could accomplish that goal. So we were sad this week when we found that the bar is closing at the end of the month.

When we looked back at the bars we visited in 2016, we discovered that three others -- Donny Dirk’s Zombie Den in Minneapolis, The Tank Room in Kansas City (Missouri), and Afternoones in Staten Island (New York) have closed. Another, Hank Dietle’s Tavern in Rockville (Maryland), suffered a devastating fire this winter, but volunteers and donors -- and even the governor of Maryland -- are working to rebuild. It was (probably) the oldest bar in Maryland, with (possibly) the first liquor license issued after Prohibition, and we're glad to think we could walk in again someday.

We walk into befuddlement, not madness

Mad Duck Craft Brewing, Fresno, California
I really must admit that I don’t understand the shirt at all. The shirt reads “I (silhouette of duck) Beer.” Is beer glass throwing a problem necessitating much ducking to avoid being hit in the head? Does one quack into one’s tankard? Paddle, duck-like in the vats of brewing beer? As I said, this confuses me, but it’s okay because the servers wearing the shirts also tended to wear friendly smiles.

Mad Duck is in the Campus Pointe Shopping Center right next to Fresno State University, and the mall is mostly restaurants, with a few shops and a movie theater. It certainly seems to be a student-centric place. We’d gone to the movie theater to see Isle of Dogs. (And if you see any stop-motion features about animals in a foreign culture this year, make it this one. It really is fun.) After the film, we crossed the street and a manicured courtyard and went into Mad Duck.

I had to fetch a notebook from the car, so Mindy and our son Bret went inside. When I got back, I couldn’t see them from the door, but the hostess told me they might have gone to the bar.

She was right. They’d found three seats together at the low bar on the far side next to the door to the kitchen. The place was busy, and the seats were together, so all was well -- but it was a little odd to sit looking up at the bar itself. Bartenders and wait staff could loom, but they didn’t abuse their looming powers.

The background music was Phil Collins, the Boss, Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, and many others who made the ‘80’s great, even though the crowd was too young to remember the era. I guess April in Parks and Recreation was right. Everyone loves “Time After Time.”

We were hungry, so we ordered food before deciding on drinks: chicken sandwich for me, chicken tenders for Bret, and crispy goat cheese sliders for Mindy (it was National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day). For dessert, we ordered drinks.

We didn’t order any of the beers or I.P.As brewed in-house, delicious as they may be, because (as we have stated in these parts many times before) we really don’t like beer. We truly duck it whenever we can. So Bret ordered Woodchuck Apple Cider, Mindy had an Irish Coffee with whipped cream (and a dash of chocolate, but not the Frangelico in the Nutty Irishman because she’s not fond of hazelnut), and I went a bit more exotic this time with a S’Morchata (a Mexican themed blend of cinnamon, vanilla, rum, chocolate bitters, and housemade toasted marshmallow syrup).

Our bartender, Corrin, noted our liquid desserts, and though she was quite busy, took a moment to answer our two standard questions, “What makes for a good bar?” and “Whether you go or not, what do you think makes for a good church?”

She gave one answer. “It’s the same thing for both places…. Friendly and kind service, people who are patient and open minded.”

I asked her what she thought about the Mad Duck, and she said she was happy to have a good product that she felt good about selling. The management is patient and kind. It’s one of the best places she’s worked.

We thought it was a very nice place to visit. Good food, good drinks, and a friendly staff -- though we didn’t encounter any deranged or angry waterfowl. On the whole, I’d consider that a good thing.

We walk into a Basque bar

Santa Fe Basque Restaurant and Bar, Fresno, California
I overheard a guy say as he walked by,“I’ll take a couple of shots, and then I’ll start singing soon.”

Thursday night was karaoke night, and some people didn’t need shots for the courage to sing. Julia, the bartender, started the evening off by nailing “Be My Baby.” The quality of the other singers varied, as it usually does. The playlist was certainly Sinatra heavy (“My Way” was sung twice, by different people). But since we didn’t come for the singing, that was just a bonus.

We didn’t even come to watch the Warriors, though I must admit that’s sometimes the case. It was just as well since the Warriors didn’t play well and lost to the Pacers, 106-126. I guess even that was okay because it was Indiana. And Indiana was related to the reason we were at Santa Fe Basque (besides, you know, for this blog).

Thursday was the night of our 32nd wedding anniversary, and we'd gotten married in Indianapolis, Indiana. To celebrate, we decided to go out to eat -- and make our typical Thursday night bar visit.

We’d been talking for years about going to a Basque restaurant (there are two in Fresno) because of a memory from my childhood. The family car broke down in Winnemucca, Nevada, during a cross-country trip with my parents and brothers and sisters, and we were stuck there until the car was fixed. Fortunately, our motel had a pool, and the town had a family-style Basque restaurant.

The Basque people come from the Pyrenees Mountains in southern France and northern Spain. To judge from the two restaurants I’ve visited, Basques make wonderful food and serve a lot of it.

So when we got to Santa Fe, we decided to eat dinner in a booth before drinking at the bar. There’s a regular dining room, too, but our booth in the bar area had a good view of the bar, and we could also watch people getting ready for karaoke (in case we ran out of things to talk about).

The interior decoration is, well, interesting. There’s a boar's head on the wall, and dollar bills (and even a few fives) stapled to the ceiling. Behind the bar, we saw cartoons and humorous slogans (such as “The hardest part of being a bartender is knowing who’s drunk and who’s just stupid”). We wondered if we should go to the upcoming Fresno area Basque festival after seeing a poster for the event on the wall.

Mindy ordered fried chicken, and I ordered pork chops (following David the waiter’s advice, we asked for added garlic). Before we got them, though, the “set up” was brought to the table: three other courses, starting with lentil soup and bread, then a beautiful green salad and potato salad with shrimp. Garbanzo beans and a chicken stew arrived just before the entree, and little dishes of pistachio ice cream topped with whipped cream concluded the meal. We enjoyed watching people at the bar chatting, laughing, and sharing stories. Once the karaoke started, people encouraged the singers, even getting up to dance along to their singing.

When our meal was over, we sat at the bar and ordered house cocktails: a Basque martini and Picon Punch. According to Wikipedia, Picon didn’t actually originate in Europe but was created by Basque immigrants to the United States, who took it back to the Old Country. At Sante Fe, they use Torani Amer with the traditional soda water, grenadine, lemon and brandy (garnished with an olive and a maraschino cherry).

There were two empty seats together near the middle of the bar, and Mindy asked the man on the left if he minded if we sat there. Joe assured us he didn’t bite. And it’s true, he did not, and neither did Charlene, who sat next to him. Not even when we asked them the two questions we always ask, “what makes for a good bar?” and “whether you go or not, what makes for a good church?”

Charlene said a good bar had a good crowd and a good environment, with a mixture of ages. “People here are down to earth,” she said.

Joe said they’d lived in the area for years, but only found this place about a year ago, and they immediately felt at home. Charlene said, “They welcomed us with open arms.” Their only regret is that Santa Fe Basque Restaurant and Bar doesn’t have a happy hour.

Joe said, “The places in Tower are too loud. It’s hard to talk to people.” They also raved about the food at the Santa Fe. They eat at the bar, where Charlene gets the club sandwich that’s just like she used to get years ago and Joe gets the setup. They talked about the abundance of food -- they usually have to take some home “My dog needs to eat too,” Charlene laughed.

When we asked about churches, Charlene talked about one church they attended that was all about “funds.” (I misheard at first and thought she said the church was all about “fun,” which didn’t sound so bad, but the church was all about fundraising.) They loved another church, even though the worship was in Spanish and had to be translated, and even though the services took an offering at the beginning and the end. They said the church wasn’t around anymore. She also said, “both churches preached the Word, and that’s what you look for.”

Years ago, our daughters liked to listen to the soundtrack of the Disney musical “Newsies.” One song is about a character’s dream of leaving New York for the glories of Santa Fe. Since New Mexico was more of a drive than we had time for on Thursday evening, this Basque bar and restaurant provided just the “change of scene” we needed.