Bronx Bar

The classic advice to the aspiring author is “write what you know”. I would say that to be pretty sensible but sometimes there is a risk of writing about things that are too familiar. Writing about the Bronx bar for me seems to be straddling that thin line. The Bronx was an old haunt of mine. I remember it as being very dark and Dionysian. I would walk there from my old apartment and sip beer for hours occasionally punctuating my evenings with shots of whiskey.

Then I moved. Away from the Cass corridor and all it’s gems. I’ve since found new watering holes but I still miss my old ones from time to time. So I went to the Bronx the other day, my first visit in years. My God, how things have changed.

First thing, while approaching it’s hard not to notice their new patio. The doors of which are similar to a garage door that opens up the whole establishment like a can of sardines. This means more space and better lighting for the bar’s resident drunks. But at what cost?

The Bronx that I remember made you wish you brought a flashlight. It was dimmer than a Kardashian (zing!) and greasier than Paris Hilton (okay, I’m done, I promise). But times change and so do bars. The clientele seems to have shifted also, instead of the usual hipster infestation the bar was stocked with white collar yuppies. I was literally the only customer in there who wasn’t dressed in business casual attire. I never thought I would say this: I missed the hipsters. I could at least relate to the hipsters by bitching about how much I hate hipsters (self hatred is the key to successful hipster-nicity).

So there I sat, contemplating change in this small bar. I was sipping a Blatz beer and wondering “have I too become a sell out mainstream shill?”. Then I realized that I was still being a curmudgeonly bastard, albeit one with a nicer car than before. This is the great dilemma I was faced with while evaluating this bar: did the establishment go bad, or am I just upset by change?

Gone are the days of my dingy loft apartment in the corridor. Now I live in a cute house in the suburbs. Instead of band practice in the evening I now fire up the grill and have a cold beer in my backyard. My visitors consist of young professionals, other college students, and their dogs; as opposed to my old acquaintances who preferred to hang from metal hooks and go on three day vodka and cocaine benders.

Back to the bar: the beer was cheap and cold. I ordered a burger and out came one of the best damn sandwiches I’ve ever had. The staff was friendly and interesting. A white haired woman in a red tank top delivered my drinks between her cigarettes while cursing at one of her coworkers. She would stop every few minutes to go hack up a lung outside.

Behind the bar were the classic mirrors and a painting of a topless woman. Rows and rows of whiskeys and bourbon were neatly lined up on each side of the cash register. A chalk board sat next to the whiskeys that diagrammed a series of drink exchanges. This allows patrons to buy each other drinks even when they’re not there.

So I lift my glass to the Bronx. Maybe it sold out, maybe it bought in. Either way it’s still a nice place to sit back and remember days gone by.