Volume 3, Issue 22
October 25 = November 7, 2001

BOTTOMS UP!

Alex Neth

BONNIE BRAE TAVERN

740 S. University Blvd

Sometimes you run across a bar that you should have been to already. A bar with a history, a reputation, a place known to be something or the other. You run across it, and try it out, and the resulting experience is almost always a disappointment. Because, for whatever reason-- the place supposedly has great drink specials, or hot wings, or dwarf tossing-- the hype is always better than the reality. Hearing about and expecting hot wings beats actually eating them. And even if a place has great drink specials, it's still just a bar, just like every other bar you've ever been to, unless, of course, they toss dwarves.

But occasionally, one of these places turns out to be worth it. Such is the case with the Bonnie Brae Tavern.

I know, I know, before you start-- it's in Wash Park. It's not really so much a bar as a restaurant, the kind of place that our large friend Bobby should go, if he hasn't already. It's far away. It's full of-- ugh-- families and old people. The inside looks like a Howard Johnson's, all aqua and low-slung booths. The high ceilings and bright fluorescent lights scream Junior High cafeteria in three different languages. The service is, if not completely worthless, definitely negligible; and the food comes prepared in a box stamped U. S. NAVY. I know. I know it all. Because all of those things are precisely why the Bonnie Brae Tavern is a fantastic place to eat semi-quality food and drink $4 beers (for a pint; a glass is $2.50. I didn't know they came in sizes smaller than a pint). It is not a particularly good bar, just a workmanlike one that has last-ed since 1934. 1934! That's a long time for a bar to stay in business in one place, even in a static neighborhood like Wash Park. That deserves a certain amount of respect. That deserves a certain amount of patronage.

Because how in the hell else could it have stuck around so long? There are rumors that it's the pizza, and indeed, the pizza looked tasty when I saw it, but come on now-- it's just pizza. Pizza is the simplest food in the world. Chimpanzees can be taught to make pizzas at four months of age. Domino's has become a multi-billion dollar corporation by hiring nothing but teenagers, for God's sake. There is nothing more worthless in the entire world than an American teenager. Do you think that ol' anti-abortionist, Tom Monaghan, could have pulled it off if, say, he were making tapioca pudding? Not a chance, sparky.

But I digress, as is both my won't and my need. The Bonnie Brae tavern has institutionalized mediocrity, as so many successful longtime restaurants do. The place is crowded on a weeknight while the big-money chains look at half capacity. People of virtually every demographic group-- I don't think I saw any Kurdish poetesses or Namibian telephone repairmen-- clog the tiny booths and order half-hearted entrees like chicken fried steak and ravioli with meatballs. It's comfort food, comforting because it isn't that tasty. Kind of like Spaghetti-O's and potato chips, which, as a matter of fact, I believe to be Thursday's lunch special.

The drinks are drinks, and I feel a bit bad holding this place to my usual specifications-- what, no filth?-- when it has far more in common with Gunther Toody's than it does with its cross-the-street neighbor, the Campus Lounge. But still, there they are. The one good thing I can say about the bar part of this restaurant is that they do actually serve pitchers of beer, which should be available in every American drinking establishment, along with peanuts and a broken men's room toilet. There are some things that should just never change.

This place, evidently, is one of them. It sure doesn't seem to have made many concessions to history with either its façade, menu or décor, and people love it. This is original kitsch, first generation cheesiness. It is a simple concept, execut-ed simply and with a modicum of class, and that goes a long way in these days of snobby busboys and dishwashers with development deals. It is easy to understand the Tavern's popularity, now that such old places are more likely to be corporate replicas than Mom-and-Pop originals. Authenticity is hard to come by, especially anywhere within a mile of Cherry Creek North, and when people feel that they have it, they want more and more of it.

Which, in the final say, is good in this case. Like I said, this place earns its reputation by sinking below it and coming up on the other side. Of course it isn't good. If it was, it wouldn't be. See what I mean? Ah, hell with it. Try the double-chili burger. B