To my friend who is a bouncer at Dick’s Bar and Grill, what happened?
You thought that with St. Patrick’s Day being on a weekday, there would be “wee” little customer traffic. But the place was as hoppin’ as a green toad, while serving the green bunny Hopster brew by New Glarus, and the whole front room was full and aflutter. (I especially liked the green facial hair, as in a mustache that was being passed around to patrons at more than one table, and sideburns that were showing on some of these new Irish, in a flash of flair that continued to show until the weekend). And the pair of bartenders sported fully-solid green and a red shirts, respectively, as to the Irish, one was a Grinch. The same two colors were sported by an off-duty server in his shorts and top; did they coordinate before coming to work? And did they include the Mennonite I saw who was virtually part-Irish in a long, bright green coat?
There were St. Paddy’s people aplenty at the Village Inn in North Hudson, as well, in part to raise some green of their own for the well deserved Randi Deal medical benefit. The inn over the holiday welcomed village vagabonds on one of the first stops in what this year was a more informally organized pub crawl, although all the places were still hit. What is becoming basically the house band closed their final set with an Irish-themed ditty on Tuesday, which was followed with more Shamrock-style music played on the jukebox.
The busyness trend was not the same everywhere, but at the Smilin’ Moose, someone was part Irish with a plaid shirt that had green stripes, (or were they grayish)? Ditto with two people who had green shirt only and were celebrating one’s birthday with the infamous more-than-one-liquor oversize ladle drink, just perfect for an Irish B-Day. To which the bartender said, “birthday, Christmas, whatever, you’ve been good right?” Now that’s the luck of the Irish!
– A server at Dick’s who has blazing red, curly hair said that despite that, she is only one-eighth Irish. A close relative, who is similarly Irish but also part Mexican, has very dark complexion and hair, she said. Put that in the “everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day” file.
– If St. Patrick’s Day is a travel holiday, St. Paul is not the only likely destination. Server Brooke at the Green Mill said she would not be at the Saturday party her employer was throwing, because she was flying to Chicago to take in the Irish things there, such as a parade that will rival anything you’d find. One of her co-workers, Shavon, took the occasion to go into Minneapolis and go a “wee” bit crazy, or maybe more. And then there’s consummate downtown server Sofie, who a bit later was en route to the Windy City for her own birthday festivities.
– Although on the Saturday that was a pre-party for St. Patrick’s Day, there wasn’t a lot of green being worn, this says it all about the sheer number of people basically being Irish: There was a guy trying to negotiate the length of the Smilin’ Moose, which boasted the “pre-party” moniker, on crutches (you simply don’t do that).
– And the Saturday following the holiday saw a guy in a get-up as The Riddler, complete with green checks as part of his plaid shirt and pants. That fit at many levels, as TVs were showing a Batman marathon on TNT. And to complete the green theme, as part of March Madness, the college basketball team with that color uniforms, Oregon, was getting ready to play the Badger mens basketball team in the next step of the NCAA tournament, on Sunday at 6:45 p.m. You can view that contest at some of the aforementioned places, and another choice is Kozy Korner in North Hudson, which specializes in airing these kind of often-decided-by-last-shot telecasts on what is not a day of rest.
– Then on Sunday night, bartender Matt was (finally) wearing a green T-shirt, which he said is one of two such shirts he has available for work, (laundry nightmare)? The other — refer to earlier in the story — is bright red. He said the method to his madness is to wear the green shirt two days a week, so that on those peak nights there is no misunderstanding about his role as a bartender, not a bouncer, as they wear red tops.