One of the nonsense theories I once heard about why people are how they are has to do with a person’s earliest memory. It went a little something like this- your personality is formed, to some extent, by the first song or story you can remember from childhood. I don’t have a clue what that means if you grew up with Cinderella as the first story you recall versus The Wheels on the Bus as the first set of song lyrics that stuck in your head. For me, though, this whole nonsense theory has a bit more intrigue, because the first strong memories of songs or stories I have are from my mom’s mom, Grandma Alice. First of all, she had a movie star-sounding name. Alice Faye DuBois. It only stopped being super-glamorous when she married Louie Cushing. Alice Faye, though- it’s a heck of a star-power-sounding name for that era, and she was quite entertaining. She sang songs for me and my cousins, and they were almost always very silly. In fact, the first one I remember was Queenie the Cutie.
It was actually a song popularized but the Andrews Sisters called Strip Polka, and you can have a listen here, but it’s all about a burlesque show where a lovely lady named Queenie removes almost everything she’s wearing for the entertainment of a crowd.
But Heather, why the bizarre childhood memory about your eccentric (if awesomely named) grandmother? I know, I’m getting there. It’s a slow-start kind of morning. Here’s why- Cas had looked up several awesome Chicago activities prior to our departure from Dallas. One of them was a historic pub crawl, but the official tour that takes you around town from one historically significant bar to another doesn’t get rolling until next month for some reason. However, they posted their itinerary online. Silly, silly tour group- we can read! So we hijacked their itinerary. We started where they would have- the Adams Street Brewery at the Berghoff Restaurant. This one made the tour because the Berghoff Restaurant was opened in 1898, making it the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Chicago. It was really pretty- the place had inlaid wood features, a beautiful floor and even furniture that fit the atmosphere. Cas and I have been trying to lay off the carbs and sugar, but since they have a brewery that makes beer and cider, we had to give it a go. And they had a potato pancake appetizer like I haven’t seen. The pancakes themselves were about two inches in diameter and garnished with brie cheese, apples, fig marmalade and bacon. I mean, wow- right?
From there, we went to The Brehon Pub. This one was called The Mirage when it opened in 1977, and it was the ground zero for a large piece of investigative journalism about kickbacks and payoffs in the city. Apparently, if you wanted inspectors, city officials or other power-wielding folks to look the other way, you could make that happen with money, and to end that corrupt practice, journalists had to hang out at a bar and ask questions. Two of journalists’ favorite things, from what I can tell. The temperature was in the mid seventies, though, so at the Brehon Pub, we sat outside. Fresh air may have been more elusive than you’d think, though. For our one-drink visit, we somehow sat downwind of three separate people’s cigarette breaks. So it goes.
Next on the agenda was the Green Door Tavern. That’s where we get to Grandma Alice and the Andrews Sisters. This one was built in 1872, a year after the Great Chicago Fire. It apparently opened as a tavern in 1921, which is interesting, as I am pretty sure prohibition stretched from 1920 to 1933. They may have served something else in the main part of the tavern at the time, but I suspect the speakeasy downstairs could have been a proper source of income for the tavern’s owners. We had bacon wrapped figs (we kind of had a self-styled tapas dinner last night) and asked about the speakeasy, then we went down the path behind the bar and downstairs to see what the fuss was all about. There was a “hidden” door. Kind of hard to hide it, really, when there’s a doorknob and it’s very loud inside. When you arrive, you are handed seven drink recipes on tarot cards, so we picked two cards, and with them, our beverage future. The place was very cool- dark, but with its own personality, and we were really enjoying it, but they had more in store. As we were sipping our very fancy cocktails, a song cranked up and a woman in very skimpy attire came out with two feathered fans. She did a provocative dance with the fans, eventually revealing a little bit more as the song progressed. Gotta say- I wasn’t expecting that. And so, I’ve had the Strip Polka song in my head since then. Thanks, grandma.
The last stop on the pub tour was optional at this point. We just saw a very enthusiastic woman do a fan-dance, for Pete’s sake. We were nearly at flip-a-coin time for this one, but we decided to round it out and go to the Monk’s Pub. I honestly can’t remember the reason that particular bar was significant, but it was a very cool bar. And with that, we wrapped it all up and headed back to the hotel. It’s time to get moving on our next adventure. Cas has a Farmers Market in mind, and I saw a little something about a Ferris Wheel when I went digging for ideas. We should do something cool- after all, a week from today is our seventh wedding anniversary- may as well start the celebrating now.
As for a photo album, Cas is trying something different. Google is wonderful, and they make a good album, but if you want to post as many things as we have, they eventually tell you you’ve used up all of your free space. While we could easily cheat the system and use a new account when the old one gets full, he thought he’d try a new method. I’ll post a link when he shares one. Photo album: coming soon!
So, that’s it for Wednesday. See you on the other side of Thursday, and raise a glass to Queenie, the Andrews Sisters and the good people of the Chicago restaurant and bar industry.
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