We walk into a bar months earlier than planned

Vidiot Arcade Bar, Seattle, Washington
We planned to visit this bar in September.

A week or so ago, we'd noticed a pirate mural surrounding an alley doorway. It looked like the entrance to a bar, and Dean suggested we visit in September for Talk like a Pirate Day.

I thought that sounded like a good idea, except that I wasn’t certain the place was what it appeared to be. Even though the painted name was “Benbow Room,” other signs mentioned “Vidiot” a lot. And video games. I wondered if the pirates had left the building for someplace closer to the water, leaving the joint open to raging hordes of gamers -- but I figured we’d find out in September.

We found out last night.

While using the ATM that backs up on the same alley, we decided to take a look through the door in the pirate mural, just for future reference. We pulled out our no-longer-valid California licenses, since one of the “Vidiot” signs said everybody would be carded, and stepped inside.

Nary a pirate in sight, though there was a captain’s wheel in the hallway by the restrooms. I didn’t notice pirates on any of the dozens of game consoles in the five main rooms, although I could easily have missed something. There could also have been a pirate-themed game in the board game room (which, come to think of it, looked a little like it could be on a ship), where Scrabble and chess were already set up on a couple of tables, and different board games filled shelves along the wall.

The bar was easy to spot. It was U-shaped, with TVs above it and on either side playing shows aimed at adult rather than kid audiences. I sat down below the two screens playing animal videos and what appeared to be mostly children falling down and people being surprised by the contents of boxes. Dean ordered an apple cider, and I chose a blackberry cider (one of the two seasonal choices, the other being a Thai ginger cider; all were from the Pacific Northwest).

He wandered off to play some of the games, which except for pinball were free. (Pinball games cost a dollar) When we came in, two men had been sitting at the bar, and other people wandered in, greeted the bartender (usually ordering a drink), and headed to the games. After the two men left the bar, I decided to ask the bartender our questions while she wasn’t busy.

Clare was willing to tell me what she thought made a good bar and what made a good church, but she first mentioned that she didn’t go to bars much anymore, and hadn’t had a drink in over a year. She knew her customers, though, and I’d seen her greeting various people, and she’d told one man that she’d chosen the movie on one of the screens with him in mind.

She said she thought that ambiance and staff made a good bar. When I asked what she meant, she said that everyone has a different idea of the kind of place they want to go. “I want to go someplace where I’ll be welcomed, someplace like Cheers. Not everybody wants that.” She added that sometimes people want to go to a bar where they can be anonymous.

When I asked our church question, she said she’d grown up in a Christian home, so she wanted to try to remember what she’d appreciated and what she hadn’t liked then as well as considering what she thinks now. “I guess the best word is ‘relatable.’ The speaker at the church I’ve gone to on and off usually talks about stories that relate to life today.” She contrasted those stories to Old Testament stories that seemed to be from a different world.

More customers came in, and after she’d helped them, I mentioned I needed a photo of the back of the bar. She pointed out the handles on the taps, which were mostly superheroes (and villains). “They’re called ‘Adorbs.’” (they were. Totally adorbs.)

Meanwhile, Dean and Bret were playing games. I thanked Clare and wandered around. I tried a hunting game (I mostly missed, except the animals I wasn’t supposed to shoot. I hit those every time). I tried Dance Dance Revolution (I couldn’t even figure out where to put the foot that wasn’t in play, let alone follow the steps). I tried a road race around San Francisco (made me dizzy, but I got through most of the course without destroying my car). I eyed the pinball games wistfully while digging in my purse for more quarters. Pinball’s my game, not that I’m any good at it.

Not enough quarters. At this point, Dean and Bret were giant mechs fighting each other. I watched for a minute, then wandered on, peeking into the room with computer games and Nintendo 64, playing a round of Area 51 (where I didn’t know how to reload or that I was shooting aliens, leaving me feeling both incompetent and icky. Did I mention I like shooting guns, but only at inanimate objects?)

Dean was in a Star Wars pod race when I saw him next. I sat down to watch. After he won his race, he wanted to see the other rooms. He was excited to see Area 51 and wanted to play a round. After watching for a minute, I decided to try the game again when he mentioned that we were shooting aliens, not humans or the barrels and other equipment. I also noticed the on-screen instructions for reloading, which I’m sure weren’t there when I played alone.

When the statistics displayed at the end of the game, our scores were almost identical. Maybe I’m better at this kind of thing than I thought. I suspect we’ll be back, with or without pirates.

We walk to the neighborhood bar

Chelan Cafe's Ebb Tide Room, Seattle, Washington
It’s great to be able to walk to a bar. It’s an even better thing to be able to walk home from a bar. This is our second week in Seattle, we moved into a duplex near the West Seattle Bridge on the Fourth of July. We live along the Duwamish Waterway, and from our front porch we can see the Seattle skyline. And Ebb Tide is a bar we can walk to.

Chelan Cafe looks like an all American diner in the front of the building, while the bar, the Ebb Tide Room, is off to the side. You can enter the bar either through the cafe (that’s what we did) or through the door on the side of the building. The bar has a lot of maritime decor, like lanterns, a ship captain’s wheel, pirate flags, and a big “Port of Seattle” sign. Almost as prominent, though, is the other decor theme: the Seattle Seahawks. The number 12, the jersey number which the NFL team retired in honor of the fans (“the twelfth man” playing for the team), is displayed in several places.

But it’s baseball season now, so the Mariners were on TV (not doing well against the Rockies). Another TV showed poker games. Plenty of people were sitting at tables, and the front part of the bar was full, so we found seats toward the back of the bar, then hesitated in confusion when Mindy saw a plaque on the bar in front of her seat saying the spot was reserved. The bartender assured us that we could sit there. We meant to ask about it, but forgot as we decided what we wanted to drink.

Mindy ordered a screwdriver, and I got an Ace Cider (from Graton, California). The bartender gave us food menus. We’d just had dinner at home, so we didn’t plan to order food, but the bartender looked kind of sad and said, “They’re closing soon, but they don’t mind. I told them you were here.”

We ordered onion rings. They were very hot and crisp when they arrived a few minutes later.

A couple of men sat at the bar next to me. After Mike and Jones got their cans of Guinness, I asked if they’d mind answering the two questions we always ask in bars. They agreed.

When I asked what made for a good bar, Mike said, “Good people is the biggest thing, just there to shoot the sh*t.” He said they came to have a good time, talking to people like he was that night. He felt that people were looking for a change of pace from a day at work.

I asked him how important a good selection of drinks was and he didn’t feel it was very important. He likes good whiskey, but there aren’t many places around that have really good bourbon.

Jones agreed, saying a good bar needed, “Good bar conversations. If no one talks to you, they turn their backs, it’s not comfortable.” I asked him if it mattered what those conversations were about. He didn’t think so, though the conversations would often be about sports.

When I asked our second question, Jones said, “Church serves a similar purpose as a bar, a community, a social network.”

Mike said, “I don’t want to sound cynical, but I’ll never go to a church. My mom was kicked out when she was divorced. The people she thought were her friends gave her a cold shoulder. My sister was really religious, but the same thing happened to her.” He said he believes in a Higher Power, but he’ll never go to church. One time Mormons came to his door, and when he told them his point of view, they were dumbfounded. They left, leaving literature behind.

We talked for a while longer, then paid and got up to leave. Jones caught me at the door, because I’d left my notebook and pen behind. I thanked him, and then Mindy and I enjoyed the eight-minute walk home in the pleasant evening light and the very pleasant weather, with the pleasant knowledge that we could always walk back.

 

2016 Memories: We walked into an all-American bar

Cheers and Amen, the book about our adventures visiting a bar and a church in every state during 2016, was officially released July 4. Since we're also in the midst of unpacking, we're reposting stories about people who we can't forget, even though we couldn't include them in the book. We're feeling pretty independent right now, so we're remembering this bar today.

Liberty Tavern, Clinton, Massachusetts

Mindy asked the boy in Liberty Tavern about the game he was playing. The four year old told her, “Don’t listen. They say bad words.” He went back to his concentrated effort to race his car through the big city streets.

We were not in the big city. We had been to Boston a few days before, where we went to the Cheers bar (we’ll write about that soon) but that was more like visiting an amusement park attraction than a bar. So our bar visit was in a reluctant Boston suburb.

Sometimes it’s best not to investigate local legends. We heard talk from a few folks that Clinton, Massachusetts, had more bars per capita than anywhere else in the United States. (One person in the bar said it had been in the Guinness Book of World Records) Mindy investigated though, and found it currently barely cracks the top hundred in Massachusetts. We still went to Clinton because the town where we’re were staying, neighboring Lancaster, MA, is dry.

Being in the state that is the Birthplace of the American Revolution, we, of course, went with the Liberty Tavern in Clinton. (Though, frankly, I was tempted by Scooby Doo’s, another bar and pool hall in Clinton. I’ve been a fan of that mystery solving mutt since the first Saturday morning he appeared.)

The lettering of the outside sign is deceptively weathered. I would have assumed, looking at it, that Paul Revere and Sam Adams hoisted cold ones here back in the day, but the place has only been called “Liberty” since 2007, though the location has been a bar for many years under a variety of other names. The current owners have just had the place since 2013.

The bar was fairly full when we came in late on a Friday afternoon.  The walls were decorated with a mix of purchased and hand painted signs and sayings. I always appreciate the sign, “All our guests bring happiness, some by coming and some by leaving.” Shortly after we arrived, someone else came in the door and a number of people shouted out the man’s name. Sadly, the name was not “Norm.” But it was quickly apparent that people here know each other.

I noticed empanadas for sale on a counter beneath a warming lamp. I asked the bartender about them, and she told me they were made by a friend of hers who brought them in every Friday. I bought some along with Mindy's and my Angry Orchard ciders. The cider and the empanadas were very good, and minutes later I met the woman who had made the pastries.

Colleen was sitting at the bar. I introduced myself, not knowing she was the cook, but learned it soon. She told me she caters for a living, empanadas being one of many items she makes not just for this bar but also for local restaurants and catering events. She’s originally from Clinton, but has lived in a number of places through the years. She lived for a time in northern California, in Fortuna, for a bit and lived as a minor on her own in San Francisco. She’s lived for a time in Mexico. She is prone to wander, but for the last five years she has been back in Clinton.

I asked her our two questions, “What makes for a good bar?” and “What makes for a good church?” She said that what matters is having a good bartender and the people. She’s a friend of the bartenders at Liberty Tavern, so obviously that’s a draw for her. As for people, she’s just there to watch. She prefers to sit alone and observe the personalities and drama. I asked her who she likes to watch most, and she said the little boy that Mindy talked to earlier. It turns out he’s the son of one of the owners and a beloved mascot in the place. Many guests greeted the child when they came and left.

I asked Colleen what would make for a good church. She said she believes and prays everyday, but “churches are the number one place for finding hypocrites.”  We talked about this for a bit. I agreed with her that hypocrisy in the church was an issue, but I told her about some of the churches we’d seen on our trip that reach out to the homeless and hurting. She said that Clinton didn’t have much to offer for homeless people, that it didn’t have a shelter for battered women and it didn’t have much for kids. (Though I did notice, walking through town, First Concern, a pregnancy resource center.)

I had an opportunity to talk to Megan, an owner of the bar who’s perhaps even better known in this place as the little boy’s mother.  Megan is also owns a restaurant in town, Wrong Way Cafe, and she said her son moves back and forth between the places because she has the worthy desire to keep him with her. She talked about how he is a good, smart kid, and it’s quite obvious that many of the bar patrons agree with that assessment.

I asked her what makes for a good bar, and she said that a bar depends on regulars and that it’s important to keep those people happy. If a regular mentions that there is a beer or liquor that they want, she’ll get it in stock. She works to make sure that her staff wants to make people happy.

I asked her what would make for a good church. She said a friend of hers that lived to the north was a part of a non-denominational congregation that did a great job of focusing on kids, and kids enjoy it. She said that even though it taught about “God and stuff,” they incorporate “real life situations.” But she doesn’t go to church now. “I was a good church girl for a little while,” she said, and when she wanted her son to be baptized she was told that she needed to attend the church for three months. So she did. And she didn’t mind. But she quit after the baptism.

Meanwhile, Mindy was talking to a couple of men at the other end of the bar. Tommy told her that a good bar had “friendly people” and “good service” because the people were what make for a good bar.

His neighbor, Ray, said the service makes a good bar. At Liberty Tavern, he told Mindy, “you walked into a neighborhood bar. There’s good people here. It’s friendly. That’s the type of bar this is.”

Tommy grew up going to church, as did Ray, though neither attend much now. Tommy said that a good church had a speaker who could “relate to common people without talking over their heads.” The message should “relate to their life.”

Ray said that he didn’t really have any idea about what makes for a good church. “Only reason I’ve been to church is weddings or funerals. Weddings are happy, funerals are sad.” Both agreed that we wouldn’t see a prettier church than St. John’s in Clinton, and told us we should go inside if possible.

One of the bartenders, Steve, headed out to smoke, and Mindy followed him to continue the conversation they’d started at the bar. He said he’d worked there under three owners, since the bar was called Dave’s Place. He said a good bar needed “great morale for everybody, that treats everybody equal. That’s pretty much what I think a great bar is.” He added, “For me, a positive vibe. Sort of like at church: we all greet each other even if you don’t know each other. For a bar to work, everybody has to accept each other. You set all those things from the outside world aside, and know you’re accepted.”

He knew the church question was coming, and he said it’s the same thing. “No different. People go because they know they won’t be ridiculed.”

Another bartender, Tee, agreed. “Both have the same answer: good people at both ends. Staff, customers.”

I found it interesting that everyone in the bar seemed to know the laws for minors in bars: kids can’t be in a bar after 9:00 pm, and they can’t be at the bar themselves. They also know what soda the boy likes and where in the bar his toys are kept.

One of the current candidates for president used to say “it takes a village” to raise a child. I guess sometimes it takes a bar.