Ripped at the Saloon in 2000

[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty-five years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to the Saloon, 1807 N. 11th St., in Superior, and composed this article for the Nov. 1, 2000 edition of the Ripsaw newspaper. The Saloon later became Temple Bar and then Mike’s Place.]

I was just about ready to sit down to a drink a six-pack of Old Peculiar, devour a carton of grade-D chop suey and watch the USA cable network movie, when it happened. Now, I’m no psychic, but I could feel — I just knew — someone in this town was giving away beer. You can’t just ignore a feeling like that. I stuck my untouched food and drink in the fridge, jammed a tape in the VCR to record the Addams Family double-feature and headed off into the night to seek my destiny.

I remembered that the Bayfront Blues Saloon had recently closed and reopened as, simply, the Saloon. The blues version of the saloon was always a mediocre experience waiting to happen, so I thought I’d check out the new and improved action.

After entering through the plaza entrance in back, I walked into the bar — a small, dark room full of fake smoke and cheesy lasers with grunge-metal music blaring. About 18 people, mostly 40-year-old guys in mesh baseball caps, sat quietly sipping beer out of plastic cups and staring off into space. On the 15-square-foot dance floor, a husky middle-aged woman twirled around all by herself.

I didn’t even slow down, just cruised right through the room and exited out the 11th Street door. But I stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed the sign on the sidewalk. Here it was: the Saloon was selling cups of tap beer for a penny. Seriously.

Like Scooby-Doo running from a ghost, I whirled my legs in useless mid-air strides until my feet caught the ground and launched me back into the Saloon. I flung my Lincoln onto the bar and proudly announced “Tap beer here!” The bartender unenthusiastically grabbed a plastic cup and began filling it with Busch Light. I figured as much.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t take my one-cent beer out of the Saloon and drink it somewhere else, so I took it to a table in the corner. Then I counted the patrons again. Eighteen. You know you have a great bar when you offer to pretty much give away beer and only 18 people show up. A sign on the wall warned that the room’s capacity was 120. I think the fire marshal can rest easy.

After sitting there by myself and watching a rubber spider fall from the ceiling and crawl back up a strand of monofilament over and over again for about 15 minutes, I started analyzing what a bad deal I got. For a measly buck or two, I could buy a drink at a place that isn’t decorated with fake webs and crappy black-lights from Spencer Gifts. Tower Avenue has dozens of bars, and in some of them, people actually have fun. Hell, I had beer at home, good beer, bought and paid for. Of course, it was still there … and the VCR was recording the USA double feature …

Just then a group of four college-aged guys came in. Here we go, I thought. These guys will drain the tap for a buck. They sat down at a table, looked around for about the count of eight, laughed and then got up and left. About five minutes later, a gang of floozies came in, trotted around the perimeter of the room in single file looking for something, which they never found, and then trotted right back out the door.

Retreating back into my thoughts, I started to think about what a thoroughly dumb name “The Saloon” is. It would be better to just put a neon sign outside that says: “Bar.” Or more accurately: “Spencer Gifts.”

I finished my one beer and decided to get the hell out. I feared the place might be like Columbia House and my one-cent beers would come with the obligation to buy six more at the regular price over the next two years.

There comes a Saturday night in every man’s life (I realize for some men, it’s every Saturday night) when he says, “Screw the bar scene. I’m just going to get drunk on my couch and watch The Addams Family and Addams Family Values. Then I’m going to eat really bad chop suey out of the carton without even heating it up. And then I’m going to fall asleep to USA’s endless stream of commercials for 900 numbers where I could call hot women who want to talk to me.

Perhaps Uncle Fester said it best. “My name is Fester. It means, ‘to rot.’”

And rot I did, thanks to the damn chop suey.