"Looks like you have a regular," I said to the bartender as I subtly thumbed backward in the direction of the middle-aged man slumping in a booth, his untouched bottle of Bud a foot from his bobbing head.
"I know," she said. "The boss thinks we should kick him out, but he's the nicest guy. He comes in here every morning, has a couple of beers, sits outside for a few hours, then comes back in and ..."
I looked back to see once again what comes after "and."
"I don't think he so much gets too drunk as he passes out from all that sun," she said, sliding me another pint of Blue Moon. "He doesn't realize how fair his skin is."
I like bartenders with a little compassion, and this is a place where that quality can't hurt. In case you don't remember—maybe you passed out during your al fresco experience there or just maybe you forgot there was a there there—the Saloon is Downtown. Like the main attractions around it, Neonopolis (to which it is attached) and the Fremont Street Experience (from which reality is detached), this establishment opened with a splash of hype and was quickly reduced to a round of shrugs from residents.
And that, unlike any case I could build for the other two entities, is too bad. "This would be a great Downtown bar," a friend neatly summed up later that evening, "somewhere else."
If you can forget about the $100 million tomb the Saloon is a part of, if you can overlook that it costs money for the privilege of parking under it, if you can avoid looking out the front doors at the giant miner panning for gold atop the Western Village gift shop, if you erase from your mind the fact that Fremont Street was once one of the world's most fantastic streets before the city caged it and staged an overhead show to offer tourists something less rewarding than gambling ...
If you can do all those things, you'd find yourself in a great little saloon, with a socially constructive horseshoe bar, handsome wood floors, cozy dining spots, some smart appointments (or maybe they just stand out as smart against today's Fremont Street), and an arcing front wall of windows that would be much improved if only Michigan Avenue were on the other side of it.
I have some compassion, too, and that's why I dragged two friends Downtown to see how the place was doing after two years. I know the mayor once said that Jillian's, on the other side of the tomb, was "going to be the elixir that's going to make [Neonopolis] glisten and glow," but I thought the Saloon had a better chance to be the glue that got local businessmen to stick around after work.
It drew the lawyer crowd for a while, but prices allegedly rose with demand, and soon management was back praying for tourists to break through the invisible force field that tends to stop them cold at the end of the cage. Maybe if the Saloon started selling its booze in plastic football cups ...
"Or put it in brown paper bags," the bartender joked.
It was really OK for her to have a sense of humor about the situation because her loyalty overrides the self-deprecation. She has faith that the new management will turn Neonopolis around: "It just needs to be run better." Same goes for her new bosses, who've already gotten on people's good side by lowering prices (a pint of import costs a mere $2 during happy hour, 4-8 p.m.) and a few new ideas to attract locals, such as expanding both the menu and the live music.
The big question is, which people? The mayor claims to "drop in all the time." But there are only so many martinis the man can drink to save Downtown. The only regulars I saw on two visits were a couple of cabbies who get one on the house, and of course, our fair-skinned napster. Come to find out, though, the guy was a Brit who soon had a plane to catch.
Which leaves stray tourists, a smattering of die-hard Downtown workers and the occasional local drifter like me to patronize the place. And I'd like to. The design's inviting, the food's good, the beer's cheap and the service, as you've learned, is compassionate.
Unfortunately, because it is Downtown, I will always need another reason.
Phil Hagen studies bars the way other men study the law, but with tastier results. E-mail him at
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