I Took For Granted Every Saturday Night

We find ourselves back at AC's Bar and Grill, now under new management

I want to tell you about a bar I know.

Actually, I’ve already told you about it:

It’s not a fancy cocktail lounge or a craft-brew gastropub. It’s not the best or the oldest or the any-other-superlative bar in the world.

It’s just a regular hangout.

It’s the kind of place where everyone knows your name, and while they’re not all necessarily glad you came, they’ll abide you just fine as long as you abide them.

It’s called AC’s Bar and Grill, but no one really knows where the name came from. There’s no AC, either in name or in the summertime. The owner for as long as anyone can remember is a guy named Len, and if he knows the truth about the bar’s namesake, he’s not telling anyone.

Don’t go rushing to look the place up, because you won’t find anything. It’s not on Yelp or Grubhub. Heck, it’s not even on Google Maps. If you knew where to look and happened to pull it up on Street View, you’d find it was blurred out like some kind of sensitive military installation. Some whisper that Len has special connections that made this happen; others think it’s just a coincidence.

Either way, Len doesn’t court outside attention.

The rare stranger to wander through the doors at AC’s might wonder if they’ve found themselves in a Brigadoon-like apparition, a place divorced from the commonly-accepted realities of space and time, but the regulars just scoff at that fancy nonsense. It’s here, you just don’t need to know where here is. Rarely has a good hangout benefitted from the internet knowing about it.

The only reason I’m allow to even write about it is, well, let’s just say I helped Len out when he got in a little bind with the authorities a while back. I’m not going to elaborate, but let’s just say AC’s tax situation was complex. I can’t disclose the location and I wouldn’t even if I could, but I can tell you about the place.

It’s cozy. A little residential-looking shack on a quiet stretch of road down by a river, faced with that kind of fake stone bars build in the middle of the last century inexplicably seemed to favor. The sign just says “BAR”. The interior’s a joyful clutter that looks like it hasn’t been touched in decades. The walls are covered in signs for beers that aren’t even produced anymore, the kind of thing that would be called vintage if their anachronism were purposeful and not the simply the product of time and neglect. There’s a big, dusty mirror behind the bar, and a few forlorn strings of Christmas lights above it. The tables look like outdoor patio furniture, and there’s plenty of space between them, but not for dancing; just for personal space. There’s a jukebox, a fish tank that hasn’t had fish in years, and a couple of immaculately-maintained pool tables at odds with the general shabbiness of everything else.

It’s a good place.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to AC’s Bar and Grill, but it felt like high time for a visit.

You see, the bar’s changed hands.

I think we all thought Len was going to own it forever, but Len had other plans. For years, he’d talked about sailing around the world, but nobody ever really believed him. That was, until he unveiled the Last Call, an immaculate fishing vessel he’d been secretly building in his backyard for years. He took off his apron, put on his captain’s hat, and pushed off with a glint in his eye.

The Last Call washed up a few days later, with Len nowhere to be found. The Coast Guard looked for days, but to no avail. Len was declared legally dead, and ownership of AC’s Bar and Grill went to his grown son and daughter. They’d left town years ago—most people do—and they didn’t have any interest in coming back to run this shabby little bar. They sold it to an investment group and washed their hands of the whole thing.

That’s where we come in today.

Friends, it’s Friday on The Action Cookbook Newsletter, and I’ve got a story to tell you.

Things are a bit different at AC’s today, but some things never change.

You know what else never changes?

The ACBN Friday Newsletter, which brings you something to eat, something to drink, something to listen to, something to read, something to talk about—and much, much more, every Friday morning.

Today, that’s all centered on the story of this wonderful (fictional?) little bar.

Won’t you join me?

7) Knives Out

Len might’ve been the owner, but regulars have long known that the real star of AC’s was Chef Gary, who turned out huge quantities of the best chicken fingers you’ll ever eat every night. (He never divulged the recipe, but—at great personal risk—I did my best to replicate it a few years ago.)

RECIPE: The Chicken Fingers from AC's Bar and Grill

Gary loved his work, and he was proud of it. Nothing was going to chase him away.

Except for the new owners, it turned out.

Tyler and Brant—two fellows from the big city with nice shoes and not much sense—purchased AC’s from Len’s kids under the auspices of their company, Dive Bar Development Corporation. They had a portfolio of several dozen bars across the region, all carefully-crafted variations on a market-tested formula. Flat-screen TVs and craft beers on tap. Edison bulbs and retro signage. Cocktail menus and clean bathrooms.

Gary had seen enough of places like those, and he wasn’t about to work at one.

The day they showed up and started talking about “menu improvements”—he could’ve sworn they said something about cauliflower chicken wings—he took off his apron and walked out without saying a word.

“Anyone can cook,” Brant scoffed. “We’ll get someone with real training anwyays.”

Well, that might be true, but only Gary knew how to turn on the flat-top and the fryer, two appliances so tricky to manage they might as well have been haunted.

Tyler tried to reassure patrons that they’d have a brand-new kitchen coming in a few months—as soon as the range ships from Germany—but, you know how it goes. People have a few drinks, they get hungry, and then they get creative. After a few too many whiskey-and-OJs, Billy Knives got up from his seat at the bar and went looking around in the kitchen. He found some cold cuts and some condiments, and remembered something he’d seen on the internet.

“Watch this,” he said, pulling out two long knives he’d had in his jacket.

Brant’s face went ashed.

“How’d you think he got the name?”, bartender Barb asked, not expecting an answer.

Billy started chopping, and chopping, and chopping—and it turns out, he chopped a heck of a sandwich. I’ve tried my best to recreate it on my own—remember, there’s no pictures allowed inside AC’s.

(That’s not an official rule, but it’s also not one worth testing.)

AC’s Chopped Sub

• hard salami

• sliced turkey

• capicola

• cooked bacon

• provolone cheese

• romaine lettuce

• banana peppers

• red onion

• dill pickle

• roasted red peppers

• olive oil

• red wine vinegar

• italian seasoning

Lay out everything on a large cutting board and, well—get to choppin’.

I don’t have knives like Billy, so I used my two-handled mezzaluna, and went to town.

Scoop it all onto a sub roll, and you’ve got yourself a heck of a sandwich.

6) I have three apples and am traveling towards you at 17mph

It wasn’t just Gary that was rubbed the wrong way by the new owners. Barb’s been a mainstay behind the bar for longer than anyone can remember, pouring—in the parlance of Nick from It’s A Wonderful Life—“hard drinks for people who want to get drunk fast.”

She wasn’t one for mixology, save for making a few Rust Belt Manhattans on the anniversary of former patron Mike’s untimely end.

COCKTAIL: The Rust Belt Manhattan

Well, wouldn’t you know it, within days, Brant and Tyler are talking about their “cocktail program” and grousing about how the bar didn’t have a single bottle of prosecco on hand.

“Aperol Spritzes and Espresso Martinis are the bread and butter of any successful cocktail program in 2023,” Tyler confidently told Barb, and it’s probably for the best that Billy had taken his knives when he left.

Barb crossed her arms.

“You have to know how to make a drink with more than two ingredients,” he added condescendingly, popping a Tums. Barb had noticed him doing that a lot—turning bars into theme parks must be a stressful job, she snorted to herself.

“Actually, I think I’ve got something you’ll like.”

She went behind the bar and got to mixing; Jenny’d just brought some of her homemade apple cider (and apple brandy) from the orchard up the road. A little lime juice, some ginger ale, and then—she looked over, and Tyler was preoccupied with something on his phone—a few healthy dashes of Gary’s secret hot sauce.

“It’s got a real kick to it,” she said, sliding it across the bar to Tyler.

“What’s this called?”, Tyler asked, taking a sip.

“I call it the ‘Watch Your Mouth’,” Barb smiled, seeing his cheeks flush red.

Watch Your Mouth

• 1-1/2 ounces apple brandy

• 3/4 ounce apple cider

• 1/2 ounce lime juice

• splash ginger beer

• dash hot sauce (optional, but surprisingly good—use a clean-tasting one like Tabasco)

Mix the brandy, cider and lime juice with ice in a mixing glass.

Fill a rocks glass to the top with crushed ice; dash the hot sauce over the ice, then strain the contents of the mixing glass over the ice. Top with ginger beer, and garnish with a pepper if you’re some fancy cocktail person from out of town.

I gotta say, Barb was onto something with this one.

(Don’t tell her I said that.)

5) I should’ve sang a little louder

If there’s one thing that the Dive Bar Development Corporation guys weren’t planning to change, it was the jukebox. First of all, AC’s had the kind of perfectly-curated jukebox that any dive bar would kill for:

Second—and perhaps more important—the TouchTunes people wouldn’t agree to put a machine at that address. Apparently it was on some kind of blacklist due to a prior “incident”? They wouldn’t elaborate.

Anyways, it was an awful shock to the fellas from out of town when they came in one morning and the jukebox was missing. So was Dickie Numbers, and there were whispers he’d made off with it to settle up the kind of debt no honest man could pay.

It was awful quiet in the bar for a few nights, and finally Gib—Gibraltar Jones, the much-loved doorman—brought in a turntable and a record from home: The Vandoliers, the eponymous 2022 album from Austin, Texas-based band Vandoliers.

Heads up and down the bar nodded along to “Every Saturday Night”—even Brant and Tyler’s, although I doubt they felt the lyrics the same way as the regulars.

I took for granted every Saturday night
With my rowdy friends and the love of my life
We should've danced 'til they turned out the lights
I took for granted every Saturday night

4) Nothing Gold Can Stay

“I just don’t understand why everyone here’s so resistant to change,” the man said, sitting down next to Brant and Tyler at the bar one quiet evening. “You’re trying to make this place nicer, y’know? What’s wrong with that?”

The new owners—a bit gun-shy by now—seemed wary of the man, but he just smiled.

“People will come around. This town’s got a lot of potential, it just takes someone with vision—he lingered over the word while holding up a single finger to order a drink from Barb—to see it through.”

Barb slid his drink—scotch, neat—across the bar with a tight smile, and saw the two out-of-towners relax a bit as he sat down next to them. He chatted them up warmly, telling them about some of the historic buildings along Main Street—good places, great bones—that could be had for a song. Visions of AirBNBs and wedding venues danced in their heads, visions so enticing that they didn’t notice the book the man had left at his table: Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World.

Yepoka Yeebo’s new book tells the story of one of history’s greatest conmen, Joseph Ackah Blay-Miezah. A Ghanian born into poverty, Blay-Miezah wove a decades-long grift, fashioning himself a power broker and convincing Western investors that he had access to a trove of Ghanian gold, diamonds and money hidden from the British in overseas accounts. The Oman-Ghana Trust Fund, as it was called, consisted of riches supposedly hidden by the ousted former president, Kwame Nkrumah, and it offered an incredible opportunity—investors could see a ten-fold return on their money.

Of course, it was all fiction. Yeebo’s book is an engrossing account of both the crime and of Ghana’s post-colonial history; she weaves a thrilling narrative of one of the most audacious scams ever concocted.

See all my previous ACBN Friday book recommendations at my Bookshop.org shop:

“I’ve got an in with the local government,” the man continued. “If you just send me the down payment, I’ll work everything out.”

3) I really hate this town

The men were starting to doubt their investment.

Nothing had gone right since they’d bought AC’s Bar and Grill. The staff and patrons treated them with indifference or outright hostility, Tyler was afraid to drink anything at the bar, and their real estate liason had disappeared entirely.

Meanwhile, they still didn’t have a jukebox or a functional kitchen.

The TVs were going to change everything. Ten 65” LCD flatscreens, all with crystal-clear pictures, arriving just in time for football season and the baseball playoffs. When the delivery truck showed up and unloaded them, Brant burst into the bar beaming, ready to finally see some progress. “The TVs are here!”, he exclaimed.

If Barb heard him, she didn’t react. She was wiping down pint glasses, staring at the little TV-VCR combo that’d sat on the end of the bar for three decades. The movie was muted, but she’d seen it enough times that it didn’t really matter if the sound was on or not.

Quick Change, a 1990 heist comedy starring Bill Murray, Geena Davis, Randy Quaid (and featuring a host of other future stars in small roles like Phil Hartman, Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub) is one of those perfect comedies of its era—it’s not trying to do too much, and it’s a pristine artifact of a New York (and a time) that simply doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s also 90 minutes long, which is the length all comedies should be.

Oh, Brant even got sucked into the movie for a few minutes—who doesn’t love Geena Davis, after all—and by the time he stepped back outside, the TVs had disappeared.

2) I miss the last calls at the dance halls

The sad irony of it all is that Brant and Tyler—misbegotten ideas and all—were earnest in their pursuit of an idea. The only thing was, they were chasing an idea of a bar that didn’t exist, one that never existed.

A dive bar—a real one, not some ersatz off-the-shelf version—isn’t going to be for everyone, and it’s not going to be scalable or hugely profitable. It’s not going to be clean, it’s not going to have craft cocktails, and it’s not going to have cauliflower wings. In chasing that idea, though, they were helping drive away places that real people loved, places with a kind of character and feel that simply can’t be replicated.

For today, let’s pretend we have a time machine, but a limited one.

You can go back to any place that doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe it’s a bar or restaurant, but it doesn’t have to be limited to that. Perhaps it’s a ballpark or concert venue, or even that house you lived in in college that was razed for fancy condominiums.

Where would you go?

This isn’t about recapturing a lost love, betting on a sports event you have knowledge of the outcome of, or killing future despots—it’s just about a place you’d like to see again.

1) My dog don’t like you, and he likes everyone

There’s a chance that Dive Bar Development Co. could’ve succeeded. It’s true, AC’s did have the potential to be something other than what it was, but it wouldn’t have been AC’s anymore—it’d be just another bar like any other.

They could’ve succeeded, if they didn’t mess with Becky’s dog. She’d been bringing Hambone into AC’s without issue for years, and he was as beloved as any regular. Have you ever seen a boxer sit on a bar stool? Hambone would. He’d sit at the bar and listen to anyone’s problems, which was a real relief to Barb, who hated listening to them herself.

Well, Becky’d been out of town on a long camping trip, but when she and Hambone strolled into the bar, Tyler turned redder in the face than when he’d tested Barb’s mixological skills.

“You can’t bring that dog in here,” Tyler scoffed. “It’s a health department violation!”

“The health inspector’s sitting right over there,” Becky protested. “Darryl, tell him it’s fine.”

“I didn’t see nothing,” Darryl burped, not looking up from his beer.

“It doesn’t matter. This is a place of business,” Tyler insisted. “No dogs.”

Maybe it was the way he said business. Maybe it was the universal love for Hambone. Or maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Whatever it was, the next night, every patron in the bar showed up with a dog, a cat, a ferret, a goat, or some other animal friend. Even Barb had a goldfish sitting next to her on the bar, swimming happily in a beer stein full of water.

Brant and Tyler walked in, froze, and walked right back out.

The next day, they’d sold the place to Barb for a fraction of what they’d paid.

Turns out there’s nothing that a few animal friends can’t solve.

That’s something we’ve long known to be true on The Action Cookbook Newsletter. Let’s wrap up this story with a few of yours, hmm?

First up, Colm writes in in response to my charity request from several weeks ago:

Hi, just wanted to say thank you for doing this. As someone who has used crisis support services several times in his life and may yet again, they are lifesavers. Gimbal, photos attached and you can use this whole email as the message, can also function as crisis support when sleepy, but is usually too blurry.

Some of the best dogs I’ve ever met are blurry. I’ve almost never seen Olaf in focus. Great dog.

Next up, Kacie R. has a pair of very good pups:

I’d like to share two very special pups for the Friday newsletter. The first two pics are of my dog, Virgil, who scrounges and scavenges so intently I think he might be part jackal. The second pair of pics are of my mom’s dog, Biscuit, helping her prepare chili for a cookoff and perching on a window seat meant for a cat 1/5 his size. Both are wonderful goobers and toy destroyers par excellence. Enjoy!

They’re good dogs, Brant.

Finally this week, Poole H. wrote in with a lovely and much-appreciated message on the passing of my beloved corgi Holly earlier this month, and also shared this about another wonderful corgi, Olive:

Olive is four years old now; when we picked her up from the breeder they told us, “She’s going to watch you.” and she hasn’t stopped yet. I would argue that Olive has the biggest smile of any dog ever. She was the star at our apartment complex; the cutest puppy even after most would have aged out of it. She had no fear of wrestling the biggest dog, no fear of her heart exploding as she chased and barked at the much faster dogs, and somehow finding a way out of scrums unphased when bigger dogs started getting serious. She can be a cop, barking at kids having fun riding their bikes, but then shift back to the goofiest, happiest ball of fluff immediately. This morning she was barking out the side window at the neighbor’s dogs; when I directed her to the couch she put off a series of high pitch grunts. She’s half tea kettle building up pressure and half insurance agent trying to tell us “I really think you should have that thing outside the window looked at.” Maybe someday we’ll get her to stop licking the entire kitchen floor (and just the kitchen floor) after dinner. I know she’s given herself that job and she’s doing it to help our pack so I can’t be mad, like when she insists that she has to be on watch in the bedroom until the last one of us to wake up for the day. Even now she’s falling asleep by the side window but has one ear pinned against the glass should there be a need for her to start working again.

I loved this so much, because basically every word of it reminds me of Holly—we often referenced her “tea-kettle” sounds when she was mildly distempered with something we were doing. (Which was pretty much all the time.)

Olive sounds like a wonderful dog—give her some good scritches for me.

Thanks to each of your for your submissions, and—of course—thank you to you, dear reader, for making The Action Cookbook Newsletter possible. I am grateful for your readership and support, and I hope you’ve got your own AC’s Bar and Grill somewhere, too.

Have a lovely weekend.

—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)