My siblings and I all share a family cabin we’ve had for 30 years, up in a remote part of Upper Peninsula, five miles west of a tiny dead-end village along “the scenic” highway, on a beautiful beach surrounded by cedar swamps.
In the earliest days there was a bar just down the road that was brutalist 50s concrete, but warm and inviting and tended by a nice middle aged lady who lived upstairs. I remember traveling a long ways in the dark, one of the first times we went up there, and ended up seated at one of the large square tables in the middle of the room with my family. Chicken nuggets, I do believe, and there was a huge basket of crackers and bread sticks the lady dropped off to munch on while we waited- and pool/pinball to play- and a cute little gift shop corner to look at in the dim, early 90s, mid-50s-built-but-still-operating middle of nowhere bar light.
Ten years after that night, and she was getting too old for all of that. Hardly anybody went because the food was often no good, or the bread was moldy. I’d always go in, though. At least for a beer, and maybe some French fries. And to play the old record jukebox for old times sake.
Ten years after those thinning afternoons, and the place had been closed for most of those 10 years. Just an abandoned ruin along the highway to pass on the way. A sacred piece of family lore, to be brought up often and reminisced over.
When that lady retired, it felt like a certain spirit from that generation, that I found up there and kind of clinged to- the old Americana vision I always had as a child of what adulthood would be like, based on what my Greatest Generation grandpa, my most vocal male role model (he was a chatter, and salesman- my dad was not a talker) made adulthood seem like. Diners and wind up clocks in motels and pie and coffee and old brutalist concrete bars with classic american country music on a record slinging jukebox, somewhere along a silent stretch of highway surrounded by wilderness.
Recently, another bar- this one in town- has begun to take its place for me. I try to appreciate it, because my experience with the first (and with all things, generally) reminds me of how fragile things are. This place is also run by a middle aged woman, probably about the same age as the woman when we first started going to The Albany in 1991, maybe older- but the woman in my New Bar is not kindly, but quite mean. It’s a bit like the soup nazi episode of seinfeld, going in there.
The yelp reviews for the place are overwhelmingly 1 star, all of them complaining about the service. Allow me to quote a few:
“The waitress or whoever she was, was rude when i asked her to repeat what she said about being closed and she merely pointed to the chalkboard. “
“DO NOT GO HERE. The staff was rude right upon walking through the door and turned us away immediately.”
“Server plopped our drinks down on our table and walked back behind the bar to join in with the rest of the locals complaining about being open.”
“I can’t say anything about the food, because we walked out without eating. The waitress was incredibly surly, rude and openly insulting. I realize sometimes it’s part of the “atmosphere” but this lady was down right mean.”
“The waitress when we walked in was very unwelcoming.”
“This is the second time over the years we’ve eaten here, and will most definitely never be returning. The owner/server is inexcusably unfriendly and rude to her paying guests. While our food was good, the service was poor enough (POOR enough) to have destroyed the experience altogether. Unacceptable.”
These are all about the same person. She is the only person who works there- bartender, waitress, and cook. German lady in her 70s. Divorced, but recently took on a slave. Big retired guy who is sweet on her, so he hangs out there almost all day to help out (for free). I like him a lot, he’s a white collar guy from a blue collar field, so is both knowledgeable in practical matters- like boy-work, fishing, construction, cars, etc- but also has the white collar intellect, sensitivity, and ability to communicate. He wears an official shirt now that has the bar’s logo on the breast, and on the back it just says BITCH. He lives to do anything that mean old German lady tells him, and he is EXACTLY where he wants to be.
Last weekend I went in there for breakfast (only place in town that serves it, and it’s always quite good if you’re polite and patient), and John (BITCH) was sitting at the bar as usual, with one of his friends I didn’t know. I had some coffee and was about to give him my breakfast order when the mean old lady came out of the kitchen and dropped two plates of Eggs Benedict down, one for her Bitch and one for his buddy.
“Woah, Eggs Benny!” I declared, and she replied
“There’s a little sauce left if you want some too.”
“Hell yes, thank you Maam.”
She went back to the kitchen and John tells me that every Sunday, at 10:30 exactly, his buddy stopped by on his delivery route, and the old lady made them Eggs Benedict as kind of their little summer tradition this year. And I just happened in at just the right moment to get in on it.
And when I tell you it was the most amazing Eggs Benny I have ever had, understand that just thinking about it now, typing this, is making my stomach weep in longing. For that, some hash browns, and my coffee- they charged me 12 bucks.
Don’t judge a book by its avalanche of 1 star reviews.
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