Every newspaper needs a bar

[Inky_Wretch]

Especially one like Ebert writes about ... http://is.gd/32obp

 

[SixToe]

My first job required a commute and I found a nice little bar on the way.

At night I would stop for a beer or drink, shoot some pool with the owner and then help him tidy up before closing. Never paid for anything other than the usually-generous tip for my server, who sometimes used me as a guinea pig for her concoctions.

Oh, but for a whiskey and those carefree days again.

 

[jlee]

Direct link: http://www.granta.com/Online-Only/A-Bar-on-North-Avenue

Any time's a good time to read Ebert.

 

[Some Guy]

My first job was at a newspaper that quite literally shared a wall with a bar. We were neighbors. Those were good times. Some nights, too good.

 

[Drip]

In the good old days, there was always a bar around the corner to stop off and get a homer. Those days, along with DUI's, are gone forever.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

We have Jeers.

 

[spikechiquet]

My first pro newspaper gig was in my hometown and in college I had worked at a bar just two blocks down from the paper. Those made for some interesting weekends.
My second job wasn't as great for location, but the publisher was a big golfer and he would take me to the course's 19th hole for drinks, which was nice.
This gig shares a wall with a bar, and we have made a nice home there most nights, usually tipping so well they ask us when we want them to close. I've been in that bar drinking til 4 a.m. on some nights. Living two blocks away made it even nicer so no boys in blue would need to worry.

 

[Some Guy]

My first pro newspaper gig was in my hometown and in college I had worked at a bar just two blocks down from the paper. Those made for some interesting weekends.
My second job wasn't as great for location, but the publisher was a big golfer and he would take me to the course's 19th hole for drinks, which was nice.
This gig shares a wall with a bar, and we have made a nice home there most nights, usually tipping so well they ask us when we want them to close. I've been in that bar drinking til 4 a.m. on some nights. Living two blocks away made it even nicer so no boys in blue would need to worry.

The bar next to my old office, mentioned earlier, was run by a total nutjob. Just loved to party, which could be good for the patrons. It is against state law for a bar to sell drinks after 2 a.m. here. One night closing time came and Mr. Bar Owner wasn't ready to go home. So he figured out a loophole to the law. He locked the doors, and just gave away drinks for free to anyone who stayed. After all, he wasn't selling alchohol, so what he was doing was perfectly legal (I suppose). So here's this packed bar, open after closing, everybody drinking for free.

I finally left about 4 a.m., but I was hardly the last person to leave.

Rumor was, when the next day's shift arrived to open at 7 am (did I mention this bar opened at 7 a.m.?), the party from the night before was still in progress.

 

[playthrough]

Great little bar/pool room across the parking lots from my first paper. Me and the boys would go there after seeing the new edition come off the press. It was easy to find a cash game in the pool room, either with the co-workers or locals, and I used to be a pretty good stick back then so it was a small way to supplement the 16k (!) salary.

I'd usually play and drink until 2 a.m. or so and then make the loooong drive home (home being 50 miles from the office) and walk in around 3 a.m. Rinse and repeat the next day, and the next, and the next. Oh, to be 24 again.

 

[BillyT]

Anyone who worked at the Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin in the pre-Gannett days, will remember that Billy Wilson's Ageing Still was a bar in the corner of the building and run by one of the sons whose family owned the paper. (One went into newspaper editing, the other was a barkeep. He may still be).

A good chunk of the weekly paycheck never made it out of that building.

 

[SoCalDude]

My first job, the bar -- The Keg -- was across the alley. Walk out the back door of the office, 50 yards down the alley, go in the back door of the bar.
Wednesday was payday and it was automatic everybody went to The Keg. We were a PM paper. Morning backshop people started arriving at the bar about 3 p.m., press room at about 4, ad people at 5, a lot of the newsroom at 6, and so on. There were plenty of times the 3 p.m. arrivals were still there at 2 a.m. closing.
When they started a downtown redevelopment, our paper moved and The Keg was also going under. For a couple of months we kept going back there. We asked the owner how long he was going to remain open. He said, "When I hear the bulldozer coming, I'm gonna grab the cash box and run."
It was a dive, but it was our dive.

 

[slappy4428]

When I worked at Smalltown, Minn., I lived about 150 yards from work.
In that distance, were a 3.2 beer/pizza joint, an upscale restaurant with full bar and three drinking bars... Only thing I missed about the place.
In fact, the breakroom in the basement had a beer tap -- but it had been a while since management put in beer.

 

[Armchair_QB]

In that distance, were a 3.2 beer/pizza joint, an upscale restaurant with full bar and three drinking bars... Only thing I missed about the place.

This is every little town in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Except every town in Wisconsin also has a UW campus.

 

[ServeItUp]

This thread needs to be stickied so we can all pour forth (metaphor intended) with our recollections of work hangouts. What a great read from Ebert! And a few references to one of my favorite bars, the Old Town Ale House, which still indeed stays open until 4.

A country bar where a request for "no lime in the Corona, please" went unheeded with the first order, and the jukebox possessed just enough rock to clear the place out with a $5 bill. A legal-themed place on the courthouse square where the barkeep proffered a black-and-tan with Guinness over Shiner. The joint down the street with a backroom where bands played and a frontroom with Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday in the jukebox. A chain operation in a soulless strip mall where the staff kept the kitchen open for us if we called. A laid-back college bar with 110 beers on tap; flirtatious, attractive waitresses; and annoying, overbearing frat boys in need of a beatdown. All places where we knew how to run a newspaper better than dumbasses who signed our checks.

Those were the days...

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Our old spot was a little bar/pizza joint. All the media hung out there. Radio, TV and newspaper people mingling, sharing stories, busting balls and, occasionally, hooking up. At least three marriages (one being mine) happened thanks to everybody hanging out at that bar.

I miss it. Sweet Tebow, I miss it.

More importantly, I miss the people who were there. Most of our old media cronies have moved thousands of miles away. We've got a baby, so if I've got a bottle in my hand at 4 a.m. it's filled with milk not booze.

Every so often, I'll manage to sneak away to grab a pint at the old spot. A couple of bartenders still remember me. The owner gives me free drinks and swag and asks about the old gang, where they are and what they're doing.

 

[Del_B_Vista]

I've posted this here and elsewhere before, but this was one of the newsroom folks' hangouts Pre-K:

Legend had it that Timothy O'Sullivan's -- called TO's by everyone and everything but the sign out front -- had been a bunkhouse on Keesler Air Force Base during World War II, something that might have been seen in Biloxi Blues. That might have been the last time the bar had actually been cleaned, too. There were dust bunnies who'd ****ed like
the real thing, creating webs and strands of smoke, grime and God-knows-what in every corner and hanging from the ceiling (at least in places bras or panties hadn't been randomly stapled).

TO's had a different crowd almost every night: young hipsters, fishing rodeo-ers, high school reunion crowds from the 1960s on, oldtimers, fake IDers, casino and service industry types, Wednesday night with Eddie Miller playing to the leftovers from Hump Day secretary gatherings while a former Miss Mississippi takes a whirl barefoot on
the dance floor. Beer was cheap, mixed drinks usually overpoured, hot dogs were hot on NFL or NASCAR Sundays and Waffle House was right next door. Buses were chartered to go to chicken drops, a bar's family visiting another bar to visit, drink and wager on where a bird took a crap. On St. Paddy's Day, TO's parking lot looked like a fleet of beer
trucks had exploded.

It looked like an explosion of another kind of Aug. 29, 2005. After Katrina left Gulfport envying the beauty of Skid Row, there were the shattered bits of four-foot cinder block pilings the old bunkhouse sat on strewn across the lot -- and not much else. Somebody eventually found a barstool and plopped it back down where Norman, who'd show up hammered from his law offices after work and growl at men but talk Faulkner with pretty women (or write them dirty notes), woulda staggered onto.

Imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery, but I hope nobody tries it with TO's. It can't be intentionally recreated, and for that reason, it'll always be my favorite bar.

 

[slappy4428]

My first pro newspaper gig was in my hometown and in college I had worked at a bar just two blocks down from the paper. Those made for some interesting weekends.
My second job wasn't as great for location, but the publisher was a big golfer and he would take me to the course's 19th hole for drinks, which was nice.
This gig shares a wall with a bar, and we have made a nice home there most nights, usually tipping so well they ask us when we want them to close. I've been in that bar drinking til 4 a.m. on some nights. Living two blocks away made it even nicer so no boys in blue would need to worry.

The bar next to my old office, mentioned earlier, was run by a total nutjob. Just loved to party, which could be good for the patrons. It is against state law for a bar to sell drinks after 2 a.m. here. One night closing time came and Mr. Bar Owner wasn't ready to go home. So he figured out a loophole to the law. He locked the doors, and just gave away drinks for free to anyone who stayed. After all, he wasn't selling alchohol, so what he was doing was perfectly legal (I suppose). So here's this packed bar, open after closing, everybody drinking for free.

I finally left about 4 a.m., but I was hardly the last person to leave.

Rumor was, when the next day's shift arrived to open at 7 am (did I mention this bar opened at 7 a.m.?), the party from the night before was still in progress.

I, myself, have been known to see the sun rise at the place in Ann Arbor where everyone knew my name. This was usually after a hard night of drinking and hitting golf balls down Packard Road at 4 a.m.

 

[slappy4428]

In that distance, were a 3.2 beer/pizza joint, an upscale restaurant with full bar and three drinking bars... Only thing I missed about the place.

This is every little town in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Except every town in Wisconsin also has a UW campus.

This town had a small Lutheran teachers college.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

My first pro newspaper gig was in my hometown and in college I had worked at a bar just two blocks down from the paper. Those made for some interesting weekends.
My second job wasn't as great for location, but the publisher was a big golfer and he would take me to the course's 19th hole for drinks, which was nice.
This gig shares a wall with a bar, and we have made a nice home there most nights, usually tipping so well they ask us when we want them to close. I've been in that bar drinking til 4 a.m. on some nights. Living two blocks away made it even nicer so no boys in blue would need to worry.

The bar next to my old office, mentioned earlier, was run by a total nutjob. Just loved to party, which could be good for the patrons. It is against state law for a bar to sell drinks after 2 a.m. here. One night closing time came and Mr. Bar Owner wasn't ready to go home. So he figured out a loophole to the law. He locked the doors, and just gave away drinks for free to anyone who stayed. After all, he wasn't selling alchohol, so what he was doing was perfectly legal (I suppose). So here's this packed bar, open after closing, everybody drinking for free.

I finally left about 4 a.m., but I was hardly the last person to leave.

Rumor was, when the next day's shift arrived to open at 7 am (did I mention this bar opened at 7 a.m.?), the party from the night before was still in progress.

I, myself, have been known to see the sun rise at the place in Ann Arbor where everyone knew my name. This was usually after a hard night of drinking and hitting golf balls down Packard Road at 4 a.m.

Did y'all not have third-shift bars? You know, bars that opened at 7 a.m. to cater to factory workers just getting off the line?

We'd shut down one of the 5 a.m. bars, eat breakfast and go to the early-bird bars.

 

[spaceman]

One night in our press bar, our columnist got in a drunken argument with the city parking commissioner. They started to scuffle, and the parking commish got ahold of the columnist's handgun. He was going to shoot, but then he just fired the gun into the wall. Unfortunately, the ME was on the other side, making a phone call. The bullet went through her leg, but she was ok.