2026, Art, Food, Music, Mysteries, Songs

Went To a Bar

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A few weeks ago, here in Winona, there was an event at the Two Fathoms Brewing, a bar-and-grill downtown, on the river. Here’s the press release:

Silent Auction & Benefit Show for Winona Sheltering Network
Sunday 2:00 – 5:00 Free Event, All Ages
[Music by:] Ironstill; Mike Munson; Sheep for Wheat

When I got there around 3:00, the place was packed – standing room only. I got a lucky seat when a person sitting beside my friend Cherie left for the other room, where the Silent Auction was taking place. I eventually stood in a long line for a Cold Milk Stout (really a delicious thing – look it up).  It had been a year or more since I’d been to Two Fathoms – it hosts weekly Beer Bingo, weekly Trivia Night, live music on weekends, and a monthly Karaoke, et al. Best, though, are the monthly Jazz Jams on a Sunday afternoon – with the local H3O Jazz Trio and an open mic;  each month a portion of the proceeds go to a different local cause. Here’s a photo to give you the “flavor” of the place…

I enjoyed some of the changes that had been made in my absence – they’d relocated the bar, which left more central space for the stage. But since the noise level made conversation close to impossible, we just listened to the music and WATCHED people – best people-watching I’ve done in ages:

– people seeing each other and hugging, or just being delighted to reunite
– lots of little kids, some in tutus and other fancy dresses
– a guy in the corner talking to his friend, holding his mug and a baby
– so many different ages of people, and everyone seemed in a good mood
– a singer pauses to announce that there’s a pizza looking for a home – can anyone please claim this pizza???
– and the pizza smelled SO good..
–  felt good to be among these people; everyone there was in support of the Sheltering Network
– there were great silent auction items – “knocked it out of the park”, someone said – and they raised around $12,000 for the WSN

 When was the last time you were in a bar? Or attended a fundraiser?  Was it enjoyable?

Where is your favorite place to “people watch”?

40 thoughts on “Went To a Bar”

  4. I frequent an indoor golf simulator store in town that has a bar “attached” and is next to a pizza joint. So I’m there once a week. I don’t always have a beer though. I also usually have a beer after golfing at the golf course. Otherwise, I don’t go to bars much. I’m of an age where “one and done” is enough for me, especially since I drink good beer like IPAs. 🙂 (higher alcohol content)

    We also have a cozy wine bar in town that Sandra and I visit every few months.

    Haven’t been to a fundraiser lately. I used to attend Evening for Kids’ Sake sponsored by Big Brothers Big Sisters. But it’s a silent and live auction fundraiser that’s too rich for my blood in those situations. Besides, every time I sell books to the public I’m “attending a fundraiser” because I’m raising BBBS donations based on my sales. (two birds with one stone)

    Fave places to people watch are the street fairs and festivals I participate in like the Raspberry Festival in Hopkins or Owatonna’s monthly (in summer) Downtown Thursday event. Best people watching by far.

    Chris in Owatonna

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      1. Is there still a Hogan Bros in downtown Winona? We have a sister (brother?) Hogan Bros here in Northfield. Winona’s used to actually have live music. Ours doesn’t do that very often anymore.

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  5. I think the last time I was in a bar was last fall after one of the protests I attended. We went to Imminent Brewing, which has become the town watering hole. It was still quite warm out and we sat outside on the patio. There are two kinds of beer that I like there. It was fun to be outside with friends on a nice afternoon after a protest.

    I go to fundraisers for local causes. I missed the last one at the Grand because I was at the MBOTMA Winter Weekend. It was a fundraiser for the Community Action Center. This is a generous town, and I give to the CAC quite regularly, and I’ve volunteered there. I wasn’t worried about them making money (I heard they raised $20K that night). I just kind of felt bad about missing out on the fun.

    I enjoy people watching, but I often feel like maybe I am being watched back. That limits my enjoyment of it. I haven’t been to the Ren Fest for years, but that’s where the best people watching can be found.

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      1. I’ve volunteered for the food shelf. They also run Meals on Wheels through the CAC, and some people have their food shelf items delivered. There are a lot of volunteer opportunities there.

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  7. I had to give my memory a jog on this one. I’ve never been crazy about bars and these days I don’t run in a “bar crowd”, thank goodness. I believe the last time was about a year and a half ago, I joined a few old work colleagues at Wooden Hill in Edina for a trivia night. I didn’t even end up getting a drink because every time there was a little break in the action, the lines at the bar were too long. We came in second but it wasn’t as much fun as I had anticipated, so I let the team leader to leave me off the invites.

    Best people-watching? Hands down – the State Fair. I know, I know, you’re all shocked!

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  8. We rarely, if ever, went to bars in Dickinson because we didn’t want to run into clients and other folks we knew shouldn’t be drinking. Here in Luverne there are two bars. We don’t go to either. As psychologists we tend to people watch wherever we are, out of habit.

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    1. I look for ADHD people too. But now I am never out. And people with fibromyalgia. Crowds are a good place to spot both. For the last four years I have avoided crowds and loud noise because I have ADD and fibromyalgia.
      Clyde

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  10. I don’t hang out in bars, but they often have live music by local musicians. That’s the draw for me, although the people watching isn’t bad either. I did go to Badger Hill Brewing with friends from Northfield last November after the MBOTMA Fall Jam to see Uncle Muskrat. The bar wasn’t crowded at all and they had nonalcoholic selections that were very good. We also ordered food.

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  11. “My” bar is a block away. I go there every two weeks. I check on an ailing spider plant I gave the owner. It gets lots of sunlight and is doing great! They make my requested sauerkraut/pineapple pizza. It’s almost as good as was the downtown Fargo Shakey’s. They always let me play oldies on the jukebox. One of the owners knows North Dakota very well so he and I trade stories including about Dickinson 😀
    I’ve done a few karaoke events there. Won a participation prize.
    My last fundraiser was in November 2023 at a memorial here in Franklin, OH for K-9 cop, Fury, who died when his cruiser was struck by a wrong-way driver doing 90mph. The human officer escaped the crash with minor injuries.

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  12. Hard to say exactly because I’m not sure what came before what and I’m not sure what the demarcation between a bar and a restaurant is, exactly. Easily the most memorable relatively recent bar was one I talked about before on the trail- The Yamatoya Jazz Spot in Kyoto. Owned and operated by 80+ year-old husband and wife, the Jazz Spot only serves coffee, beer and a selection of fine whiskies. They have a whole wall of vintage jazz LPs and high-end turntables and speakers. Husband and wife take turns selecting an LP and placing it on one of a pair of identical turntables, then set it spinning. When the record on one turntable pauses between songs, they lift the arm on that one and lower the arm on its twin.

    After a day spent walking around Kyoto in 80+ degree heat it was a pleasure and a delight to sit and sip a beer in the mellow calm of the Jazz Spot. It inspired me to flesh out my jazz collection when I returned home.

    The people watching was good but limited most times to watching the husband behind the bar and his wife serving.

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  13. I am trying to think of a time when Sandra and I went to a fund raiser. We did donate willingly. But we did not buy things. We donated money without buying. So fundraiser were not our fit. Friday is Sandra’s birthday. By chance my daughter is coming over. She promises we will not eat at McDonald’s. (See if any of you get that family joke.) I remember. We went to the annual Lutheran Social Service state dinner when she received the award as the state volunteer of the year. At the end they asked for donations in a pep rally sort of way. People were writing checks for tens of thousands of dollars. It must have been about 2007.

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  14. Hi-
    I haven’t been in a ‘bar’ bar for a long time. YEARS! Places with food and a bar, sure, every week. Some of those places might be more ‘bar’ than restaurant… Just last week we went out to eat on Friday night and it was karaoke night at this place. Thankfully it’s sort of L shaped and the drunk — I mean people singing karaoke were on one end and we were eating at the other end.
    Evidently most people singing karaoke don’t realize they can’t really sing. It was very enlightening to me. They were really bad…
    Speaking with some friends, they pointed out, there are different levels of karaoke, and that place is pretty low down there. In Rochester there are only 2 places to do that thing, and the other one is a little more ‘upscale’. I’ll never know.

    I heard the malls are making a comeback. Evidently the teenagers have taken to the malls again. Because they missed them the first time around.
    So airports and malls are always good for people watching.
    Or any downtown public event…

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  16. One of the guys in my guitar group inherited the MC job at an open mic in a brew pub bar. i played and had a couple thc drinks
    interesting buzz
    people watching is an ongoing event for me.
    everywhere has great people
    dylan at rochester tomorrow will be good

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  17. I go to bars occasionally to meet up with friends/former coworkers. Usually nothing interesting, just a local restaurant with a bar/happy hour. There’s a good brewery in Minnetonka called Unmapped that’s a fun place to hang out, but haven’t been there in a while.

    I work for a nonprofit, so I get to attend/help organize/volunteer for fundraisers a couple of times a year.

    I love people watching at the Renaissance Festival. The MN State Fair has too many people wearing red hats for my taste. Husband and I like to watch the people we encounter walking around Lake Harriet, especially the “regulars.”

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  18. Good evening, Baboons,

    The last fund raiser I attended was last month (February 24 at St Andrews Lutheran here in EP–no bar) called Empty Bowls for our local food shelf called PROP. They do it up and this thing is attended by thousands. Local restaurants donate soup, Northern Clay pottery donates clay bowls thrown by students, and local music groups perform. I heard a very good girls’ choir from Cologne while I was there. They raised around $100K which is sorely needed this year. So many are needing food support after the recent occupation.

    Bars? Not often. I am a light drinker. I have been to the brewery Julie mentions (Unmapped) for a birthday party. Restaurants with a bar are a different story, though. I love to order a Moscow Mule with a nice meal.

    A favorite people watching spot, along with the ones previously mentioned, is Lake Harriet, especially at the bandshell, on a warm summer weekend when there is a concert. My favorite guy was the oldman wearing a green kilt and no shirt. I have a picture.

    Quarzite, AZ is also prime people watching–every nonconformist in the USA is there. My friend and I tried to get a picture of our crystal saleswoman who had shaved off her eyebrows, then re-drew them an inch higher, embellishing off her look with LOTS of blue eye shadow. Neither one of us ever had a clear shot of her though. Many red hats in residence.

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    1. I’ve seen the man in the kilt quite often at Lake Harriet. He is indeed shirtless, but usually wearing leis when we see him. He appears to enjoy the concerts. Another “regular” is a tall man dressed in all black with a wide black hat, carrying a fancy camera with a huge lens. His clothing is always exactly the same; we’ve joked that he must have a closet full of identical shirts, pants, and shoes. The crazy thing is that I see him just about everywhere around the city, once even at the Minnesota Opera (sans camera).

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      1. I’ve seen the shirtless man in the kilt at Powderhorn Park at some art fair. On that occasion he was dancing and had attracted quite the crowd. This was at least ten years ago, but it’s an imagine that has stuck with me.

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    2. The green kilt guy is someone I used to see at the Irish fair on Harriet Island, where he was enthusiastically greeted by the throngs. I also saw him at the Asian festival at Phalen Park for a few years, where he got a lot of puzzled glances and people gave him a wide berth. A little online investigation tells me his name was Matt and he died about two years ago.

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  19. I think the last real bar I’ve been in was the Red Wing Barrel House bar, on a day when the restaurants were pretty full, and we settled for a glass or two of wine and some humble but pretty decent food heated by the bartender in some sort of toaster oven behind the bar. The bartender was working alone, and a certain amount of patience was required to get food to go along with the wine.

    I recall being at an airport bar with a group of friends maybe ten years ago. We went on a little excursion to the vacation home of one of the friends. We met at the airport in the morning and ordered mimosas in the bar.

    Most of the places I go to that have bars have food as well, so it’s a fine line. 1881 Eating House has a lovely bar, but it’s more food focused than bar focused. Same goes for the downtown St. Paul Sawatdee, at which the bar is a rather striking focal point, but the food is the real draw.

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  20. It’s been years since I’ve been to a bar, and I’m not sure I could tell you which one was the last. It may be the small, local brew pub in my neighborhood named Wabasha Brewing Co. I have met up with friends there a couple of times, but the noise level is deafening and it’s impossible to carry on a conversation; but the beer is good.

    More often than not, when I went to a bar, it was to hear music of some kind. Charlie Parr or Jack Klatt at the Turf Club, for example, or the various dive bars in the Cedar/Riverside area were fun and full of local musicians. More recently, the Waldmann’s brewery hosts live music with some regularity.

    I used to go to W.A. Frost with some regularity when I lived in that neighborhood, but that’s over forty-five years ago. At that time there was another alternative to the very civilized, almost genteel atmosphere of Frost. Just down the street was The Commodore. At that time the building had been converted into condos and had it’s own private squash court, and a very nice bar that was open to the public. There I sat shoulder to shoulder with Malcolm Moose a couple of times; this was after he had retired as president of the U of M. The Commodore was also where I heard Chad Mitchell during his attempted comeback after he had been incarcerated for smoking pot. As far as I know, that didn’t pan out.

    Lots of fun memories that I haven’t thought about in a long time. Thanks for opening the floodgates, Barb. Anyone remember the jazz brunches at The Jazz Emporium in Mendota Heights featuring the Hall Brothers New Orleans Jazz Band?

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