I don't know why Champagne's Café feels like home. Maybe because it's got the same gilt-and-red-velvet-flocked wallpaper my parents had during the '70s. Maybe it's because the walls are hung with the same Marilyn Monroe posters I had in my bedroom in the '80s. Maybe it's because they have booze, which has been making me feel safe and secure for the better part of 20 years. All I know is, be it 12 noon or 12 midnight, Champagne's somehow calibrates itself to become just the place I need.
During daylight, regulars sit at the bar, pushing dollars into the video-poker machines and sipping drinks that run about twice that. Over their heads are shot-glass light fixtures and Christmas ornaments that bring holiday joy 365 days a year. Behind the bar, three televisions run muted sports-babble and an array of LCDs and blackboards display the current winning numbers and hands. Against the walls are low and wide burgundy vinyl booths, perhaps the most comfortable in town. (A friend of mine pointed out that Champagne's expansive seating would make for "a great fat person's bar," but I suggested that the discreet lighting indicates potential as a fine gay spot. A bar for persons of alternative weight and sexual orientation was something he didn't want to visualize. But hey, I might have the same misgivings about imagining a tavern geared toward over-the-hill blonde alcoholics. Fear the future! Or at least your particular future ...
Most of the clientele know each other, or get to know each other, but are just as happy to leave well enough alone. If you'd rather sit quietly in a booth, scribbling angst in your journal, or take a stool near the end of the bar to tune up your guitar before heading to tonight's gig, no one's going to bother you, save to inquire whether you might like a refill or maybe some cheese fries. Yes, Champagne's even has food, courtesy of Kat's Kitchen, serving up nachos and barbecued chicken sandwiches that are much better than you'd expect.
Come nighttime, the crowd becomes a bit denser and a decade younger: groups of college kids celebrating birthdays, co-workers having a few after a particularly egregious day at the office, a drinking club for tattooed ladies. It's not that Champagne's has embraced hipster irony: The jukebox doesn't have any great records but is still one of the best in town because everything is good in a solid Frank Sinatra/Patsy Cline/Creedence way. They've got karaoke on weekends, administered by the always-entertaining Bobby Shawn, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Al "Grandpa Munster" Lewis and has been known to take (over) the mike for an impromptu Neil Diamond tribute. The song selection isn't vast but it is serviceable and the atmosphere encourages even the shyest to take the stage. Where else will a table at the back sing impromptu backup on "Wanted Dead or Alive" or chant your name as you step up to "Breathless"? (Although I like to think they did it because my "Me and Bobby McGee" was just that damn good.)
After more years than anyone will admit, Champagne's doesn't cater to trends but to its customers. A woman walks in the back door, plops herself onto a stool and asks the bartender to give her a vodka rocks and put a Bud Light on ice because she wants it to be "the coldest Bud Light ever." The man behind the bar smiles benignly and announces that the Buds are already on ice and already arctic. He hands one over, she takes a pull, sighs and slumps into her seat with satisfaction: "You had just what I needed." Of course they did. Home is where they take care of you.
Lissa Townsend Rodgers learned to make a martini at age 6. E-mail her at
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