Walkin’ Around Checkin’ Stuff Out. #15

Jan 21, 2024

Monty Bar & Hotel. Montgomery, MN

I can’t speak for the hotel, but I can say the bar is a first class small town main street dive bar complete with cheap strong drinks and full of regulars who love them.

We stopped in one late afternoon to play a game of dice and have a beer. It turns out about a dozen regulars show up at the same time every week to play…you guessed it…dice.

So we threw our quarters in the mix and joined them in a game of “Bar Dice” (aka: 6,5,4).

I’m not one to brag, but I will say this “City Slicker” (as my new friends so affectionately called me) took those town folk for every quarter in the house.

We thanked them for the gas money and aimed the Mini Cooper back to the cities before the night got too crazy. But we’ll be back.

Custom Slaughtering.

Locker Plant. Custom Slaughtering. Montgomery, MN

Here’s something you’re only going to see in a small town. I suppose you could see it in the city but it would be called something like ‘Artisan Meats’, or ‘Bespoke Proteins’ and probably have a fancy chef name attached to it.

But it makes me wonder…what’s the difference between “custom” slaughtering and regular slaughtering?

It’s an oddly cheery building design for a place that slaughters animals. When I first saw it, I thought it was candy store or something. Nope.

Chinese Carry Out.

Chinese Carry Out Food. Kansas City, MO

Well…it used to be Chinese Carry Out Food.

I always wonder about places like this…what was it like when it was open? Was it good?…They must have thought so, they didn’t even really have a name. How long was it open? What was it before it was Chinese Carry Out Food? It sort of looks like it used to be a walk-up burger stand…but who knows.

All I know is it’s seen better days…but hopefully sometime soon someone will fire it up again with a dream of making a living cooking people good food.

Oscar!

Ok…some of those drawings are a little bleak…let’s lighten it up with this happy little guy. Aren’t dogs the best?

Northeast Minneapolis Dive Bars.

If you’ve been following along you’ve seen a whole bunch of great Northeast Minneapolis neighborhood dive bar drawings.

We’ve reached the end…here are the last two in the series. Cheers!

The Knight Cap. Northeast Minneapolis, MN.

I love the Knight Cap and the great play on words. But I do have to ding the place on one thing. A few years back they decided to “freshen-up” the interior. Don’t do that.

This goes out to all dive bars: You are a DIVE BAR…don’t fuck it up. You have a responsibility to the world to be a dive bar and to continue being a dive bar in a sterile, sanitized world.

Don’t clean the place up…don’t modernize it or try to make it more approachable and “family friendly”. Don’t add fake log cabin accents or update the bar or replace the cracked and torn old vinyl booth coverings. You will ruin the “dive” part of dive bar. You are not, and will never be Applebees…and why the hell would you want to be???

Ok…(Deep breath). That’s my rant.

Dusty’s Bar. Northeast Minneapolis, MN

Ahhh…Dusty’s. Now that’s a dive bar. They were even purchased a few years back by people who own a fancy restaurant and what did they change about Dusty’s? NOTHING. Smart people. Very smart people.

Heck…they didn’t even get rid of or change the name of their famous Italian sandwich…the Dago.

Happy bar hopping!

Until next time.