Iron City Eats: Primanti Brothers, Pittsburgh, PA

I woke up feeling great on Thursday morning. The birds were chirping, sun was shining and far off in the distance, a lone jackhammer hummed into the concrete. I was in Steven’s Point, Wisconsin, more specifically on the front porch of a house, in an inflatable rubber raft.

It was surprisingly comfortable.

Several hours later myself and the boys from Battlefields (in my opinion the best doom/prog metal in the Midwest, hands down) arrived in Pittsburgh, sans inflatable raft.

I’d been in Pittsburgh once before, although my only food related experience was witnessing an argument in front of a place called “Tony’s Pizza” in which a man dressed in stereotypical pizza-cook garb (I’m assuming this was Tony, although I have no proof) berated a guy with a long ponytail, bedecked from head to toe in Pittsburgh Steelers paraphernalia.

This time, however, I arrived with my appetite in tact. We leisurely strolled down Penn Avenue past block upon block of empty warehouses until suddenly we came upon a big neon sign reading: “Primanti Brothers”.

We were completely unprepared for the sandwiches we were about to receive. An old, grumpy Pittsburgher in a paper hat appeared, inquiring lackadaisically if we wanted a “sammidge”* before sloughing off to bring us some bottles of Iron City lager. Though tempted by the “Colossal Fish” sandwich and their “#2 Seller” the cheese steak sandwich**, I ordered the capicola. I have never been more pleased with a decision not to order a sandwich with “colossal” in the name.

Stacked high with big slices of meat, a pile of coleslaw and an armload of homemade fries, my sandwich bore a closer resemblance to a freight car from Pittsburgh’s stockyards than to a sandwich. It was heavenly.

Primanti Brothers began serving up sandwiches for iron workers with powerful appetites during the Depression and have continued their tradition of quick and hearty meals ever since. If you’re ever in Pittsburgh, I recommend you get yez down to Primanti and get yez a sammidge an’at.



*I discovered, through my research, that “Pittsburghese” is an actual linguistic dialect with its very own wikipedia page.

**I wondered aloud what the #1 seller was at Primanti Bros., our waiter hollered from across the room, “Iron City Beer!”

Allons Enfants de la Patrie: La Jour De Gloire in the land of 10,000 Lakes

*VS.



Those of you who know me can attest to my crushing if not frequently thoroughly embarrassing Francophilia. I have drunk cheap wine on the Champ de Mars, a Gaulois lit between my lips, "Du Côté de Chez Swann" under my arm, swinging a baguette and leering heartily from behind a lusty moustache. Stripy shirt and flatulent bulldog and all.

So what's a pauvre grenouille like myself supposed to do stranded in the middle of America when the quatorze juillet arrives?

Do I make a replica guillotine, re-enacting my own Terreur on some watermelons dressed like Marie-Antoinette? Or perhaps I should put some Piaf on the stereo and quote loudly from Rousseau's "Contrat Social"?

Nay, gentle reader, as I write this I am listening to "The Stroke" by Billy Squier, eating a mediocre bacon cheeseburger, drinking Budweiser and watching the MLB Allstar game at a bar which seemingly exists for no other reason than it happens to reside at the intersection of two county highways.

Vacantly staring from the northeast corner of the intersection of Becker County highways 6 and 11 "The Pit" occupies a bizarre section of highway which is pretty damn close to the middle of nowhere (the Pit claims to be in Audobon, Minnesota which takes up about 45 seconds of your time on highway 10 on the way to Detroit Lakes, although it is a good four miles from the Audobon, Minnesota I know with a lot of blank space in between) and also boasts two houses and, you guessed it, a church.

The Pit is not a great bar. Hell, it is not even a good bar, but it has beer and baseball, and sometimes that's enough...

Well, not really, however the bar that I wasgoing to go to was struck by lightning this afternoon and none of its TVs were working when the game started.

So the Pit may not bee a great bar. Hell, it's not even a good bar. But it has beer, burgers, baseball and happened to not get struck by lightning on Bastille Day and that's what I call the four Bs of good livin on a Tuesday afternoon.

Aux Armes Et Cetera mes enfants!


*Many thanks to my friend Benjamin Moses Smith for the gracious use of his visage as well as the other dude whose name I forget.

Apologia

Hey Friends,

Sorry I've been conspicuously absent from VA for a while. Busy, busy, busy! I am going to be doing a set of reviews coming up in the next week though! So keep your eyes peeled and your hands on the wheel!

Cheers,
Bryce

It's Always 11:45 PM in Chicago: The Skylark

Skylark Bartender Nick who not only looks as though he should work in a boxing gym in the 40s, but also recently played one on stage. Nice moustache, Nick.

If ever there was a bar that made me want to spiral off into a Bukowskian barfly bender, slouched in the corner writing poems about flies, making derogatory comments about women and attractive people and drinking cheap whiskey, the Skylark is it. It’s not that the Skylark is covered in dirt and grime, or packed with bar sluts and Johnny Ginblossoms, it’s simply the atmosphere. It's always 11:45pm in the Skylark. Were Chicago a city that still allowed smoking, the Skylark would be in a perpetual fog of nostalgic cigarette smoke. However, appearances can be deceiving as, hidden behind the half burned out 10 watt lamps and cracked linoleum floor is an excellent, always changing selection of beers and one of the best kitchens in Chicago’s shabby-chic hip-kid haven, the Pilsen neighborhood.

While there is a set menu at the Skylark including some of the best burgers the south side of Chicago has to offer, the real treat is their ever changing specials menu which runs the gamut between Moroccan lamb stew, ahi tuna steaks and my personal favorite, t-bone steak.

As a self proclaimed master of the grill, it has been my mission, nay, obsession to perfect the t-bone and, while I have gotten rather good at it, there is no substitute for the Skylark’s t-bone. Juicy, with just the right amount of fat to keep the flavor in-tact, not too much salt and just enough pepper, this steak is like the cover of “Kings of Metal” by Manowar, standing atop all its competitors, sword in hand, lightning crashing down. Epic.

While the kitchen is a pleasant surprise, the integral function of the Skylark is a dive bar. Dark, cavernous booths yawn along the wall as you enter, a few dim lamps and some neon from behind the bar provide the only illumination. Towards the back of the bar, a lonely pinball machine stares down a photobooth. During the day you can usually find some shabby scholar reading Giles Deleuze through precariously perched bifocals as he takes down his third pint.

At night, Pilsen’s good looking art kid population shows up. James Brown and Wilson Pickett go on the record player (yes this bar has a record player, no juke box, just a record player) and tables get cleared for dancing, most of which consists of that old hipster classic: “slightly swaying while spilling PBR all over the floor.”

Perhaps one of the best things about the Skylark is something it lacks, rather than something it has. No televisions blare in any of the Lark’s darkened corners, one feels as if one might have stepped through time back to an era when people went to bars to have conversations, or a quiet drink, without being distracted by the outside world. Also conspicuously absent from the Skylark is the air of pretension which generally accompanies dives where good food meets the art set. The bartenders are laid back but efficient, the patrons, from what I have noticed, seem to simply mind their own business instead of trying to prove something about their wardrobe to the rest of the bar and the mood is always one of affable drunkenness.

The Lark is as close as I’ve come to finding a Gold Standard for dive bars. And believe you me, I’ve seen a lot. From the food to the booze to the crowd to the music, the Lark has got it figured out on all fronts.


NAME OF BAR
The Skylark
2149 South Halsted
Chicago, IL

BEER
Tap: PBR plus a rotating selection of good stuff (Lagunitas specials, Great Lakes, etc.)
Bottle: Seems decent.

FOOD
One of the best dive kitchens I’ve ever seen. Moroccan lamb stew, great burgers and, of course, T-Bones.

ENTERTAINMENT
TVs: None!
Bar Games: Pinball, Photobooth

CLIENTELE
Attractive art kids, old men reading books, lots of ties.

MUSIC
Jukebox: No jukebox, just a record player and a bunch of bartenders with taste.
Live: Apparently there is live jazz on Saturdays, I have yet to verify this, though, perhaps I will have to make another trip.

DÉCOR
Bukowskian Chicago Dive

BANG FOR YR BUCK
Seems pretty decent, PBR’s cheap, generally have beer specials, food is about average for Chicago.

OVERALL RATING
9.5

CLOSING THOUGHTS
The Lark is, as I mentioned before, one of my new favorite bars in the world. Dark and drunk and fun. Check it out in the afternoon for a quiet pint or at night for the crowd.

Charleston, SC: AC's Bar: The Champagne of Beers of Bars

Charleston has a really big bridge. You can see it from miles away. It looks like something out of a science fiction movie, suspended by huge cables in a large arc. Throughout the 16 or so hours I spent in Charleston, I was to become intimately familiar with this bridge.

You see, if you miss the turn for Bay Street off of Highway 17 in Charleston you are damned, damned I say, to cross that bridge, make a u-turn and try it again. However, one thing I learned about the Carolinas is that they only like to mark exits from one side, not the other.

I drove over this bridge a grand total of 9 times.

Not in a row, obviously (I am slightly more navigationally capable than that) but throughout the day I either missed the Bay Street exit or was attempting to get somewhere else and ended up on the bridge 9 times.

Impressive, I know.

During my time in Charleston I came across a little hole-in-the-wall called AC’s Bar (467 King Street, Charleston, SC for those of you keeping score at home). From the outside, one would be hard-pressed to choose AC’s over any of the other bars in the neighborhood. Just a small neon sign reading AC’s and a nondescript awning adorn the façade and one imagines that the patrons like that just fine. Comprised mostly of tattooed rockers, bike messengers, the denizens of AC’s appeared to enjoy their own Private Idaho. And who wouldn’t? A nicely cluttered bar area gives AC’s that lived in feel, scruffy and unpretentious.

$2 PBRs and a damn good burger for roughly $5 make this place easy on the pocketbook as well. I had a straight up cheeseburger which was expertly cooked (not too done, not too raw, with almost a slight char on the outside, delicious).

However, the most memorable thing for me was that the bartender had, apparently, rifled through my high-school record collection and played a TON of music I hadn’t heard in eons. Right when I showed up, in fact, he played Alkaline Trio’s “Goddammit!” record in its entirety. By the time I decided to leave ACs my brain was so addled by PBR and Chicago-style pop-punk I was getting ready to seek out a drummer and write some 2 minute hookfests about drinking cheap beer and sitting on couches, all soaring octave lines and machinegun drum fills. However, I soon put the kybosh on that notion as I continued my journey across that damn bridge…



AC’S BAR
467 King St.
Charleston, SC

BEER
Tap: A few locals and some crummy domestics.
Bottle: Selection seemed pretty good, AC’s has their “Beer of the Month” where you get a pretty damn good bottle for $2.25 . This month it is Harp.

They also have their whole booze selection written on the mirrors over the bar including a section which says, simply, “Champagne: Miller High Life - $2”

FOOD
Excellent burgers, pretty standard bar fare. Apparently they also have the best Philly Cheese Steak south of the Mason/Dixon.

ENTERTAINMENT
TVs: A few on which baseball and America’s Funniest Home Videos bid for my attention.
Bar Games: Pool, touch screen.

CLIENTELE
Rockers, hipsters, bike messengers, etc.

MUSIC
Jukebox: Not that I could see. An iPod that, apparently, can look into my past lives at the bar, though.
Live: There appeared to be a stage at the front of the bar, although there weren’t any fliers up for shows.

DÉCOR
Cheers meets your Uncle’s basement


BANG FOR YR BUCK
Pretty damn good. 5 Buck Burgers and 2 Dollar PBRS. I got out of there for 9 bucks plus tip.

OVERALL RATING
8.5

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Did I give this bar a higher rating because it inadvertently brought me back to my childhood? Maybe. Should you still check it out if you are looking for something to do in Charleston? Definitely.

Springfield, IL: You Can Take Our Land, But You Can Never Take Our Freedom Sandwich

One of the highpoints of travel has to be eating local specialties. Any time I am at a bar or restaurant I make sure to ask if they have some ridiculous food or drink item that is their specialty. Generally if you find a local to take you out they will automatically take you to the restaurant that makes shots in a flaming coconut or has a scale model of the Eiffel tower made out of French fries and cheese.

Or a giant pile of heart attack.

Springfield, IL is home to many wonders. The capital of the great state of Illinois cuts an imposing figure in the skyline which appeared, to Jack and me as we were driving in to the city, to be a giant hand flipping us the bird. Ahh southern Illinois.

Springfield, for some time, was also home to one of the most amazing people I know, Ms Abby Rae Lacombe who is responsible, in some fashion, for the excellent Front Porch Sitters blog and is also a dear, dear friend of mine. Abby, being an ex-Springfieldian, joined us for our show in Springfield and, consequently, introduced me to a sandwich which may, some day, be directly related to me necessitating open heart surgery.

I use the term sandwich very, very loosely. The Horseshoe, which is so famous it has its own Wikipedia page is more of a pile of delicious heart-attack on some Texas toast. The ingredients, from what I can remember are: one huge slab of Texas toast topped by a couple of hamburger patties, covered in French fries and then smothered in some kind of white cheese sauce. There were also some onions in there, I believe. In any case it is an imposing heap of bar food which even I, who fears no burger, could not finish in one sitting.

The best Horseshoe (which, according to Wikipedia, is also known as the “freedom sandwich”) as per Ms Lacombe, is to be found at D’Arcy’s Pint. A relatively unremarkable bar, save for the heaping piles of cardiac arrest they serve on a regular basis, I will blame D’Arcy’s Pint on my death bed as my arteries finally give up the ghost, shaking my fist in futile rage at the Horseshoe for being so damn delicious.

(I should mention that I recently found this website where the Horseshoe should definitely hold a place of distinction if it does not already.)

Right in the Breadbasket: Lawrence, KS pt. III: The Bottleneck

Photo by Jeremiah Hammerling
Note: This picture was not taken at the Bottleneck in Lawrence, KS but at the EP Theater in Chicago, IL about which I will write later.

Another helpful hint for those of you out there on the road, free pool time is your friend. Generally you can find one or two bars in any given town that have set their pool tables to “free” during the afternoon/evening*. These free pool times also usually accompany happy hours which is also a bonus. Free pool is great for myriad reasons.

1) Idle hands are the devil’s plaything.
If you tour like I usually do, you generally have a lot of time on your hands to screw around. They say that time equals money and this has never been more true than when you have a little bit of money and a lot of time on your hands with nothing to do. Free pool eliminates your need for something (which usually costs money) to do. Also, as I mentioned before, free pool is usually accompanied by happy hours which also ease the strain on the wallet. Also if you happen to play in a band with someone who is really good at pool, it gives you the chance to progressively improve in order to one day defeat them**.

2) Hey there Stranger.
Free pool/happy hours are great places to meet people. Don’t know anyone in town? Afraid no one is going to come to your show? Hit up the local beer hall with free pool, play a few games with your bandmates and strike up conversations with people playing near you. If you/they are cool they will end up coming to your show later that night and probably call their friends to say “Hey I met these dudes at the bar earlier, they are playing tonight, let’s go!” You want this.

3) R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Many places you will play on your tour will be bars. These bars will have pool tables, and if you can play a decent game of pool against someone at the bar you gain that person’s respect. This will lead to them sticking around to watch you, buying a t-shirt and maybe offering you a place to crash. Careful though, just because Cletus put up a fight against you and your bass player during cutthroat does not mean that his house will be clean, not covered in cat poop, or that he will not try to tell you about how he robbed a bank and/or try to get you guys to “party” all night***. So, free pool is your friend then, because it offers you the chance to work on your game.

4) Bonus Round.
As you can see in the above photo, you can also take awesome band pictures while playing pool and people will think you are cool.


So after eating a delicious meal at the Mad Greek, Jack and I found ourselves in a position we occupied a lot, namely, having very little money and a lot of time on our hands. So, what did we do? You guessed it. Free pool time.

The Bottleneck is apparently a pretty cool rock club. Although we were there in the middle of the day, the lineups seemed to be pretty cool, mostly touring acts. The Old 97s or some band of that ilk was playing the night we were there. Most importantly for us, though, they had free pool and cheap beer.

We were the only ones there, so numbers 2 and 3 were eliminated, however it did give me a chance to lose spectacularly to Jack about twelve times as well as to consume some of the local Free States porter which was delicious.

The Bottleneck qualifies as a dive bar, for me, dude behind the bar with a bad attitude, nasty looking concrete floor, no door on the bathroom/stall, etc. so, since it’s been a while I’m going to bust out the old DBRS:

Tah Dah!


THE BOTTLENECK
737 New Hampshire
Lawrence, KS

BEER
Tap: Pretty good, a lot of locals.
Bottle: Good.

FOOD
None that I could see.

ENTERTAINMENT
TVs: Meh.
Bar Games: Three pool tables (worn and lumpy just like a dive bar’s should be).

CLIENTELE
Couldn’t tell, as there was NOBODY there.

MUSIC
Jukebox: Above average.
Live: National touring acts.

DÉCOR
90’s Alt-rock press photos/standard rock dive fare.

BANG FOR YR BUCK
Happy hour was pretty decent from what I remember and they appear to have several of them, can’t speak for showtime, though. Also the free pool didn’t hurt.

OVERALL RATING
7

CLOSING THOUGHTS
The Bottleneck seems like it would be a good place to see a show. We certainly had a good time playing free pool and drinking cheap beer there, if you’ve got time to kill in Lawrence I’d recommend it.




*A quick search on Google usually will turn these up.
**Kelsey Crawford, if you are reading this I am coming for you.
*** “Party” generally involves watching CHUD II, drinking the worst beer you can think of and listening to his stories about all of the different ATVs he’s owned in his life. Not cool.