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Volume 3, Issue 13
June 21 - July 4, 2001
BOTTOMS UP!
Alex Neth
ACK! ! !
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ALICE COOPER'STOWN
1909 Blake Street, Denver, Colorado
303-295-7974
Sometimes, during the creation of this column,
I feel an inescapable urge to use a particular line or phrase, consequences be damned. I am powerless to
defend against it. The will is too weak. So
naturally, when the opportunity arose to
review Alice Cooper'stown-- where
Rock and Jocks meet, according to the
sign outside and my nightmares-- I
leaped for it like an Oryx with a hotfoot.
Now, finally, I am able to write a column
that begins:
Welcome to My Nightmare.
Alice Cooper'stown is
Dick's Last Resort with
eye makeup-- survey
says, gone in a year.
Food costly, concept
silly, rock star/ cadaver
owner relic of a
weird part of the '70s.
Should I go on?
Probably-- if I don't pad
this out I won't be able to pay
for that tuck-and-roll. Too bad. The last
thing this place needs is more publicity.
From the tootling of the media's coronets
the last few weeks, one might have
thought that Krispy Kreme was opening a
floating doughnutarium, or that Boeing
had changed its mind, decided to relocate
to Denver, and what the hell, lap dances
for everyone. But no, that sucking sound
was emanating from the offices of the
Post and the Rocky, and the beneficiary
was a hollow-eyed restaurateur whose
chief claim to fame involved wearing
makeup and hanging out with serpents
almost 30 years ago. Alice Cooper is
here, they gurgled excitedly. Golly, we
hear the food doesn't suck at the one in
Phoenix! And he's Alice Cooper!
Maybe it had something to do with the
musical tastes of the Denver newspapers'
reporters-- not unlikely, since most of the
reporters I've known, myself included,
have crappy taste in music-- because it
sure couldn't have had anything to do
with the place itself. Built on the corpse
of the obnoxious and smelly Dick's Last
Resort, Alice Cooper'stown has the exact
same unwelcome, slimy feel. The televisions
are uncountable, the merchandising
is unbelievable, the eye makeup worn by
every member of the staff unthinkable,
and the prices unforgivable. I could have
bailed Grandma out of jail with what I
paid for dinner. My entrée cost more than
my college education. And it was brought
to me by a guy in eye makeup, for God's
sake.
Now, that didn't bother me for what it
was-- guys in makeup, dresses, love
affairs with stuffed animals, whatever,
live and let live. But it bothered me in this
context. Theme restaurants and bars that
make their employees dress up in silly
costumes transgress against the basic dignity
of humanity. When I see the poor
teenagers at Muscle Beach hot dogs in
their big neon testicle hats, I feel bad for
them. I think of Better Off Dead, and
John Cusack in the pig nose, or Judge
Reinhold in the sailor suit in Fast Times
at Ridgemont High. I feel bad
for the girls who work at
Hooters and The Baja
Beach Club (although I
don't know why,
because they all make
significantly more
money than I do), and
I feel bad for the nice
young servers at Alice
Cooper's House o'
Goofiness. I know their
suffering. I worked at Rodizio
Grill for a long time, and wore the
puffy pants, the sash. The pirate shirt. It
was a daily exercise in self-loathing.
This is a restaurant for tourists and fools.
Anyone thrilled by the prospect of eating
expensive food in a disorienting atmosphere,
go ahead. Make your reservation.
Anyone who wants a waiter to yell at
them through a bullhorn if they order a
hot dog-- it's called the "Big Unit,"
ostensibly after Randy Johnson, the massive,
ugly star of the Arizona
Diamondbacks, but you know-- show on
up. If you want to have a few scoops
downtown, and not be bothered by the
rankness of the rank-and-file, avoid this
place like it was Big Enos the Creditor.
Really. You have so many choices. Why
choose unwisely? Places like this are
built to be torn down. This isn't even a
real bar-- it's a facsimile, a model of an
overbearing chain, an establishment to be
avoided. This, in the final offing, is all
you really need to know: when a group of
policemen at a nearby table asked the
manager if he was from here, he shook
his head and looked like he had been
asked to eat his own hair. "No way," he
said. "I'm from L. A."
It would take a chainfall to get me back in
there. An earthquake. A tsunami. Or a free
drink. D
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