101 Libations - Part 2 of 5
Thursday, July 16, 2009. Day 2 of our July barhopping trip that would end up taking us to 101 bars.
At 6am on Thursday morning, far too early for the condition I was in, I was awakened by the sound of a baby crying in a nearby room. After about 15 minutes of that, the sound was joined by the shrieks of an older child throwing a tantrum. Eventually the screeches subsided into sobbing, and after at least half an hour of this racket it finally subsided enough that I was able to fall asleep for a few more hours.
We awoke for real around 9:30am and slowly got ready for the day. As we prepared to check out, we discovered that we could not find the room key. This was not a disposable magnetic card, this was an actual metal key of the kind that there would likely be a replacement fee for.
We spent at least half an hour searching for this key.. retracing all our our drunken steps from the night before. We shook out the bedding. We dumped out the laundry bags and went through pockets. We looked in every nook and cranny with a flashlight and checked every drawer.
It was sitting out on the table the entire time, hidden by a tiny shred of a plastic bag.
It was also around this point that it dawned on us we had never turned on the TV. As far as we could remember, it was the first time either of us had stayed at a motel in another town and now turned on the TV.
We loaded up the car in pouring rain. Soaked, we began heading west on our way out of Lincoln.
We both had hangovers and were uncertain about this day. Day 2 is always the hardest, as the body is recovering from the shock of day 1 and hasn’t yet adapted to an all-liquid diet. We knew that the first beer of the day would be tough to drink.
We had wanted to go to Big Red Keno, but with the heavy rain and being engrossed in conversation we drove right on by it without seeing it. No matter, we’d be near more of those later in the trip. We continued west to an unincorporated area called Emerald in the outskirts of Lincoln, to a place we’d been told would give us some good food.
8250 W O St
25. Merle’s Food & Drink
Lincoln, NE 68528-9161
(402) 474-6435
merlesfoodanddrink.com
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
I think we were the day’s first customers, though more began trickling in. There was no shortage of service, we had at least 3 people taking care of us. I got myself a nice big steak, while B ordered one of the day’s specials, sirloin hash. The latter was so good that I have since learned the recipe and made it a few times.
With a meal and the day’s first beer under our belts, we hit the back roads in a generally northwest direction.
Garland, NE
(pop 247)
Originally named Germantown, renamed due to anti-German sentiment during WWI. Was named after Private Raymond A. Garland, the first local resident to die in the war.
Our next bar was supposed to have been Corner Bar at 173 4th St, but it was not open yet when we arrived. That’s a shame, because the sign out front said “World Famous” and now we’ll never get to know why.
It was now time to leave the paved roads for a while and make our way to the next town.
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Bee, NE
(pop 223)
In 2004 a man named Paul Perry decided to cycle “From A to B”. He began in the village of A, Norway, on May 7 and rode 5,600 miles arriving in Bee on August 28. (For the transatlantic portion he use a stationary bike on the QM2.) He rode a tandem bike so he could pick up hitchhikers for company, and his arrival in Bee was greeted by 50 other cyclists, 250 onlookers, 2 news crews, and an official welcoming committee.
176 Elm St
26. Lou & Mary Anne’s Bar
Bee, NE 68314-9140
(402) 643-2313
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
Luckily for us, Lou and Mary Ann were awake and doing business. This place felt like a perfect small town gathering spot. It was also a welcome relief after the land of oversized college beers in Lincoln: nice little 10oz draws! As we enjoyed our drinks, we watched Judge Judy decide a case about a vandalized car and a case about a sick dog that had been put to sleep.
“Do you know if there’s any more rain coming?” the bartender asked me.
“No, I think it’s over,” I said. “I hope it’s over, anyway.”
“I hope it’s not,” he replied. We really, really need it.
Guess it was pretty selfish of me to want good weather for the drive. It hadn’t occurred to me how important rain is here.
Staplehurst, NE
(pop 281)
Named for Staplehurst, England — the original home of the village’s founders.
330 A St
27. DJ’s Bar & Grill
Staplehurst, NE 68439-3031
(402) 535-2253
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
We weren’t 100% sure if there would be a bar here or not, our research had given us an iffy impression that it might have gone out of business a few months ago. But it was open and business seemed to be good.
There was a beer garden, and this place was unusually clean and well-maintained for a bar in such a small town.
We returned to the world of pavement and made our way down the road to a fairly large town.
Seward, NE
(pop 6133)
Best known for its huge 4th of July celebration, an annual event for over 140 years.
123 S 4th St
28. Spare Time Lounge
Seward, NE 68434-2107
(402) 643-3898
[map]
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This was a bowling alley bar but was pretty isolated from the bowling, enough to give it its own personality. It had a very unusual, split-level layout (see pictures above) that made the bartender actually lower than the customers at about 2/3 of the barstools. They had recently opened a new patio, I believe they called it “The Beach Club”.
719 Main St
29. RO’S
Seward, NE 68434-2043
(402) 643-3152
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
This was originally supposed to be our first Seward bar but it was closed when we arrived, we spotted it open as we were leaving town. A nice big clean bar. $1 draws, some of the cheapest we’d find. It took us about 10-15 minutes to drink our 12oz beers, meanwhile a guy behind us drank a 32oz red beer in just a couple of minutes.
There were 2 other bars in town that we had planned to check out, but we could not for the life of us find them: The Gallery and an unknown bar at 629 Jackson, where we found only what looked like a warehouse. We had both North Main and South Main addresses for The Gallery but found could not find it at either address.
Utica, NE
(pop 844)
Originally named Derbyville, the name was changed to Utica around 1880 because the railroad insisted on towns being named in alphabetical order. (A fact that I did not notice until writing this now.) Though a tornado destroyed parts of the town in 1985, most of the downtown buildings are still in use after over a century.
430 1st St
30. Bullet Hole
Utica, NE 68456-6113
(402) 534-2323
[map]
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This was a COMPLETE bonus bar, absolutely nothing in our research indicated this would be here and we wouldn’t expect a town of this size to be able to support two bars side-by-side. The Bullet Hole is over a century old (believed to have opened in the late 1800s) and it has always been named The Bullet Hole. The bar itself was constructed in 1892 by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company in St. Louis and originally used in Dubuque, IA before being shipped here in 1906. For being so old, it’s in amazing condition!
aka American Legion Post 49
31. First Street Bar & Grill
440 1st St
Utica, NE 68456-6113
(402) 534-2777
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
After The Bullet Hole there really wasn’t much to say about this place, it was pretty plain, but it had some interesting grandma’s-house-like décor.
On our way out of town we saw a pretty cool gas station, the pumps were on the sidewalk and you just pull up alongside them on the street. Check it out in Street View.
Our way to the next town was interrupted by road construction near US-34 & Road U, where a crew of extremely disorganized flagwomen were giving unclear signals and failing to communicate/coordinate with each other because none of them had walkie-talkies. Eventually someone showed up in a pickup and passed out radios and finally, after one more tounr of miscommunication, the traffic jam slowly started to clear.
Waco, NE
(pop 256)
Pulling into town we spotted a toilet in a yard with a sign wishing someone a happy 50th birthday.
311 Midland St
32. Hunters Restaurant Lounge
Waco, NE 68460
(402) 728-5613
thehuntersrestaurant.com
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
This place has a split personality. When you walk in you are presented with a choice of two doors: one leading to the Keno lounge and one leading to the restaurant/lounge. We chose the door on the right and sat at a bar that was your basic bar & grill type of place with a slight sports bar feel to it. We also checked out the other side, it was much darker and more lounge-like with more of an emphasis on hard liquor and mixed drinks as opposed to the beer emphasis on the other side. Though the Keno lounge is where the hard core Keno players hang out, you can actually play Keno on both sides.
York, NE
(pop 8081)
York was a major stop on the California, Oregon, and Mormon trails. It is the birthplace of the 4-H program. Today the town is also home to a women’s prison.
For a town of this size we really expected there to be more bars, but our advance reconnaissance work only identified four. One of them was a motel bar south of town that wouldn’t be open until quite a bit later, and another was a place that had reportedly gone out of business. We kept our eyes peeled for bonus bars while driving around downtown but didn’t spot any.
728 N Lincoln Ave
33. Midway Cafe & Bar
York, NE 68467-2949
(402) 362-9912
[map]
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This was a long, narrow space that was well lit. It was really more grill than bar, the actual bar was just a small section at the front end of the lunch counter. In the back past the pool table were several older arcade games including a few that seemed to be just getting stored there.
Behind the bar I noticed a police scanner — something I later spotted in a number of bars — and a two plaques. One honored Midway as the best bar in York, the other was an award for best Bartender in York. Which are nice accomplishments, although as best as we could tell there wasn’t a whole lot of competition.
We looked for The Finish Line, the place that our info said had closed, but due to road construction we were unable to get to that location to verify. The same construction also made it difficult to check out Chances R, and since we were unsure if there actually was a bar (it was listed as catering and fine dining) we decided to just move along to the next town.
As we made our way down the highway we noticed grain towers ahead and began devising a new hypothesis about Nebraska barhopping. We had noticed so far today that every town that had one of these towers as a centerpiece had a bar. But here was a grain tower that our research had not turned up a bar anywhere near. We decided to experiment and drive towards this grain tower anyway to check it out. Would our hypothesis stand up to our scientific experiment and be upgradable to theory?
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Yes!
Bradshaw, NE
(pop 336)
The town was completely destroyed by a tornado in 1890, killing at least 12 in the town, at least 9 people at a Russian camp outside of town, and injuring dozens. Not one building was left standing. The tornado destroyed a train that was in the town at the time, but in a bizarre twist one car remained on the tracks and was pushed 9 miles down the track by the force of the wind. This lone train car’s wind-blown arrival in the town of York was the first signal the outside world had that something terrible happened in Bradshaw.
105 E Highway 34
34. Hoffman’s Cafe & Lounge
Bradshaw, NE 68319-9189
(402) 736-4441
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
Bonus Bar! We have now established the First Law Of Rural Nebraska Barfinding. Grain towers of suitable size = bar in immediate vicinity.
Our bartender had a tattoo on her breasts and wasn’t shy about joining in with a beer of her own. Behind the bar we saw signs identifying this place as both Hoffman’s Bar and as Rog & Lou’s Bar but the Hoffman’s name seemed to be the predominate one.
Hampton, NE
(pop 470)
Named by Progressive Farmer magazine as the best place to raise a family.
111 A St
35. Korner Still Bar & Grill
Hampton, NE 68843-9357
(402) 725-3362
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
This is about as incognito as a bar can get. Circling around the block a few times we deduced that this was the most likely building given the address, but there was absolutely no identifying signage, or any signage whatsoever. We tried peering in windows and couldn’t make anything out. Finally I worked up the nerve to go open the front door, hoping I wasn’t stepping into someone’s house. Thankfully, we were right and had found the bar.
Aurora, NE
(pop 4225)
The largest recorded hailstone fell here on June 22, 2003, measuring 7 inches in diameter. Aurora is also the birthplace of Harold Eugene Edgerton, who invented stroboscopic photography and took the famous images of a bullet being shot through an apple.
A liquor license search had turned up only one place — a liquor store, but Google told us there were three places. We spotted Overtime Bar & Grill on the way into town and Mitchell’s Recreation on the square, we were unable to find the third possible location. In a hurry to get to Grand Island, we decided to choose just one of the two.
1229 M St
36. Mitchell’s Recreation
Aurora, NE 68818-2020
(402) 694-3272
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
This was a pool hall with a very nice bar. Lots of original brick and exposed timbers. When we first stepped in I thought this might be a gay bar because the bartender had a big mustache and was wearing very short, tight denim shorts, but the place was pretty full with women slightly outnumbering men so it must have just been his personal style.
As we headed toward Grand Island we discovered we had missed bars in the towns of Malcolm and Thayer earlier in the day, bars that hadn’t triggered in my report (a 50+ page book of over 300 bars) because the towns were just barely outside the range I had programmed along the periphry of our route. Since the town of Phillips was not too far out of the way, we decided to check it out just in case.
Phillips, NE
(pop 336)
Hit by a tornado in 1884 that destroyed the hotel. Then, hit by a fire in 1911 that destroyed everything downtown except the replacement hotel.
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We couldn’t find a bar here.
Finally, we reached our Thursday destination.
Grand Island, NE
(pop 44,802)
Home of Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center. On June 3, 1980 Grand Island was hit by 7 tornadoes, killing 5 people. Most of the destruction was in the South Locust area. The debris was piled into a big pit in a park on the west side of town, burned, and buried. The resulting landfill hill is now called Tornado Hill and is a popular sledding spot. The first two bars we visited (and our motel) are in the part of town that had been destroyed by that tornado outbreak.
2848 S Locust St
37. Pam’s Pub & Grub
Grand Island, NE 68801-8862
(308) 382-7687
[map]
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The front area was a buffet style restaurant, serving up all-you-can-eat fried chicken. It smelled really good and we were starving, but we wanted to hold out for pizza. The bar was in another room in the back and overlooked a golf course. We were a little early for a bartender so had to wait for an of-age server to become available to serve us.
2320 S Locust St
38. BT’s Lounge
Grand Island, NE 68801-8222
(308) 382-9773
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
We had to drive around the building to get to the parking lot, and we noticed several people out back smoking. “The cool people must use the back entrance,” B said. We pulled around front, where we were the only car, and went inside. “Oh! I’m glad I remembered to unlock the front door this time!” said the bartender.
We played some Silver Strike and B set a new high score. Meanwhile on the bar’s TV, ABC was airing a segment on J.K. Rowling (the author of the Harry Potter series, in case you’ve been in a coma), specifically focusing on her sorrows and tribulations. “I… [sniff] I fell asleep in a big pile of money, and [sniff] I didn’t know where I was!” exclaimed B in his best sobbing British female voice, to the delight of the other patrons.
After failing to spot a couple of other South Locust places on our list, we headed on downtown to look for our motel, the Relax Inn downtown. But when we got there we immediately discovered it was one of those places where lots of poor people live permanently. Which sucked, as this was the best location for us in terms of walking distance to the downtown bars.
Fortunately we had a backup plan, as I had talked to a person at the Grand Island Visitor’s Bureau during our trip preparation in order to get info on motels and cab service. But for the moment we were fine and in no hurry to check in, so decided to hit up a couple more places.
2110 W 2nd St
39. Upper Deck Sports Bar & Grill
Grand Island, NE 68803-5310
(308) 381-8666
[map]
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Entering this place was kind of strange, we walked down a smelly, carpeted hallway though a series of glass doors, with meeting rooms on either side. At the end of the hallway a couple of flights of stairs led to the bar that occupied most of the building’s upper level.
Their draws were all pints so we ordered 12-oz bottles. B asked for a glass to pour his beer into. He was handed a pint glass, and B’s beer filled it to the top. Busted! One of the barbacks overheard us talking about it and gave us a physics demonstration showing that what looks like very little liquid at the the top of the glass looks like a whole lot at the bottom of the glass. But that still doesn’t explain where other other 4 ounces went.
107 N Walnut St
40. Bonzai Beach Club / Wave Pizza Company
Grand Island, NE 68801-6012
(308) 398-9283
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
Finally, the place we had been waiting for all day! The owner of this place owns a few other places around town, and the person B talked to a week earlier during our planning was very nice and helpful. We’d been waiting all day to try their pizza.
Our plan was to put in an order, go hit up a couple of nearby bars, and then come back. But when they said it would be only 15 minutes, we decided to just stick around and wait.
After several minutes of watching others eat we were getting impatient, so I went outside to call our backup motel and reserve a room, knowing that stepping away always triggers food to arrive. It worked.
The pizza was absolutely delicious and very cheesy, one of the best pizzas I’ve had!
We then headed back down Locust to our new motel, the Island Inn Motel at 2311 S Locust St. It was very inexpensive, clean, comfortable, and had everything we needed. It even included a full sized refrigerator, how cool is that? Oddly no in-room microwave though, however there was one in the lobby that would come in handy later for thee leftover pizza.
(Along the way to the motel we spotted one of the bars we had missed earlier, Texas Stampede, but discovered it to be a restaurant. The view of it is obstructed when going northbound, which is why we missed it earlier.)
My only complaint about the motel was that the girl at the front desk didn’t seem very interested in calling a cab for us, leaving that task to me. A task that would turn out to be a monumental waste of time.
I called the number for Action Cab and after 12 rings the following ensued. (As described in by letter to the Visitors Bureau, whom had asked me to report back on my experience with the cab company as they had received complaints about unreliable service.):
At around 9:45pm I called Action Cab and spoke to a woman who did not seem to know at first where the Island Inn Motel was. She told me she’d notify dispatch and we went outside to wait.
After half an hour I called back to ask what the ETA of our cab would be. This time a man answered and when I asked about our cab, he said I never called for one.
I told him I had indeed, half an hour earlier. He told me that was impossible because he was the only person there and had been answering the phones all night.
I said that I know for a fact that I called the same number because I had hit “redial” on my phone when I called this time. I told him I had spoken to a woman when I called before. He paused, then said, “Oh. Well, she didn’t tell me.”
He asked me again where I was, and I repeated that I was at the Island Inn Motel. He did not know where that was located, so I had to walk over to the corner to see what intersection I was at.
When I told him the intersection, he said he had a cab in that area that would be there “in just a couple of minutes”.
We continued waiting outside and after another 10 minutes a minivan with an “Action Cab” sign on the side pulled up to the corner we were standing at. We started walking toward it, and the driver pulled out into the street and drove away.
We waited 10 more minutes, then finally decided that if we waited any longer the places we wanted to go would start closing. We gave up and drove downtown.
By this point we had completely sobered up and had lost nearly an hour of valuable time, so venturing back downtown on our own was our only option.
We didn’t really have a plan in mind, we decided to just find a place to park the car, take our bar map, and hit places up in the order we spotted them.
106 E 3rd St
41. Club 69
Grand Island, NE 68801-5910
(308) 675-0187
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
This was a rock bar. As we entered, B expressed concern over the “NO NUDITY” sign posted at the door. “Oh, it’s more of a guideline,” joked the bouncer.
B had tremendous difficulty finding the restrooms, which turned out to be in the room with the pool tables. When he returned, he told me to go look for them and even showed me which room. I went to the pool table room and looked around, and I was stumped. One wall of windows, 2 bare walls, and one wall painted with graffiti. No doors anywhere! I was just about to give up when suddenly a rectangle of light appeared on the graffiti wall as someone exited a restroom. The doors were camouflaged, blending perfectly into the wall.
While I was conducting my search my phone rang, and when I returned and checked my messages they were from Action Cab. Two different cab drivers, one male and one female, were claiming to be waiting for us in front of our motel. About time! I didn’t bother to call them back.
308 N Pine St
42. J Alfred Prufrock’s
Grand Island, NE 68801-5928
(308) 398-8466
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
This was a cool place. We started out at the angular, stainless steel bar but later moved into the lounge room and relaxed on a very comfortable leather sofa looking out onto the patio.
316 N Pine St
43. Nathan Detroit
Grand Island, NE 68801-5928
(308) 384-3655
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
This place was more restaurant than bar, though by this time of day the bar was the only thing open. Everything inside was woodwork, and the dining area included upstairs and downstairs booths forming a ring around the outer walls.
Our bartender was a young woman with very, very strong opinions about President Obama, the Middle East, and Muslims in general.
It was obvious the staff was anxious to close, so we hurried through our beer and made our exit.
We wanted to head to a couple of bars that were 2 blocks north of us, but our map showed a thru street that did not actually exist so we had to turn around. We decided to instead go hit up another place that we had confirmed in advance would be open and according to the posted hours would be open for another hour.
Chicken Coop
120 E 3rd St
Grand Island, NE 68801-5910
(308) 398-2500
chickencoopsportsbar.com
[map]
It was closed!
????
Come to think of it, in fact, it may have closed even before we arrived in this part of town at at 10:40… it was located right next to Club 69 and we hadn’t noticed any lights on even then.
Why post your hours if they are not your hours?
We walked several blocks down the street and did not find anything open. While walking back we spotted a kid sitting on a bench. He suggested a couple of places, one we had already been to and the other was “a Mexican bar that’s more trouble than it’s worth”. (I think he was either referring to Las Vegas Bar & Grill or Tabares Bar & Grill.) When we got back to the car, we decided to instead look for a place both of us had actually been interested in seeing, Glass Bar.
Navigating downtown Grand Island turns out to be a little trickier than it looks on a map, and we failed to find Glass Bar. When we discovered we had gone too far, we noted that we were close to White Horse Tavern so decided to hit it up instead. But as we headed north on Broadwell past its location, it was nowhere to be found. What the hell?
I turned around a couple of blocks up the road and as we headed back, there was White Horse right in plain sight. Another bar invisible to northbound traffic!
1803 W North Front St
44. White Horse Tavern
Grand Island, NE 68803-4700
(308) 384-4586
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
This was a good, basic roadhouse-style dive. There was a menu and the food smelled good, but we had leftover pizza waiting for us back at the motel. The Game Show channel was on the big wall TV, we watched some “Deal or No Deal” and another game show I was unfamiliar with.
By now it was closing in on 1:00, Nebraska’s bar closing time, and the excitement we’d had earlier in the day had become mixed with disappointment due to cab related delays and finding places closed early. Still, we’d managed a haul of 8 bars here which is actually pretty good. We decided to call it a night and head back to out motel.
However, this new plan came to a screeching halt when we spotted an open bar just 2 blocks from our motel, the other of the two bars we had been unable to find earlier in the day. It was set back so far from the road that it was simply not noticeable until nighttime, where now it was the only thing all lit up in that area.
217 E Stolley Park Rd
45. RK’s Pub
Grand Island, NE 68801-8256
(308) 382-4288
[map]
(Click thumbnails to view photos)
A pretty generic strip mall bar in a new building. A big, open sports bar with a high ceiling and blank, gray-painted drywall walls. The place was so new it hasn’t really established any character yet, but business seemed to be good and customers were enjoying themselves.
We got back to the motel and as we reflected don the day, we realized that 21 bars is actually pretty good for the second day of the trip. While we hadn’t set any sort of goal for ourselves, it dawned on us that hitting 100 bars was actually within our reach. This realization would prove to give us renewed energy for the rest of the trip.
As I fell asleep, B channel surfed. Sometime between 2 and 3am I woke up to the sound of Billy Idol singing “Eyes Without a Face” on the TV and found B passed out, remote still in hand. :)
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