Preview

All That’s Wrong

“I’ll take you to a place like you never been before”, he said.
So I followed my co workers little grey little Mazda closely as he zipped through the early afternoon traffic across town, sun roof open.
We pulled up outside the Gopher Bar in east St. Paul and poured all the change we could dig up from the bottom of our pockets into the insatiable parking meters on 7th street before we dodged traffic into the corner bar.
From the outside the building it looked like your typical neighborhood watering hole. It is an old brick building touting Coney dogs complete with beer signs covering the windows that I have driven past a million times. The Gopher is defiantly not the kind of place a girl like me would walk into by herself no matter how hungry I was. And my stomach rules my body.
But wait, this joint has the owners names and even their kids names also on the outside. You just don’t see that on a bar now a days. This establishment is a family run business. That made it a little less intimidating for me.
I followed my buddy through the door and paused, expecting to have to wait for my eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight to the dim interior of a whole in the wall. Surprisingly on the inside we were greeted by trophy deer mounts above the bar decorated with bright strings of festive holiday lights through out their antlers and enough neon beverage advertising signage to send me into a strangely happy Vegas frame of mind. No one yelled out our names “Cheers” style when we sat ourselves at a well worn chipped Formica table adorned only with mismatched salt and pepper shakers and condiment bottles, but none of the patrons accosted us either.
I had wanted to belly up to the bar and befriend the edgy looking bartender incase a Vulcan swooped in to harass me but when my big six foot plus companion opted to sit at table close to filling bar, I followed.
I barely had time to take in much of the colorful surroundings before the waitress and co owner, Cheri Kappas was at our side taking our order.
“What will you folks have?” she asked, fake pasted on smile obviously missing from her face.
What she had meant when she asked that is how many dogs we wanted period.
“What have you got?” I answered focusing on the rude slogan printed boldly across her t-shirt.
“Coney Dogs”, Cheri answered with a laugh, placing a thin plain wax paper placemat in front of us. They do have a menu and serve other food during regularly scheduled mealtimes but they are known mostly for their Coney dogs.
So we ordered the Coney dogs with the works.
The other thing they are known for is their attitude. When they found out I had never been in the Gopher before, my plain undecorated placemat was replace with one with the title “Virgin” printed across it in large dark letters. Modesty kept off duty employee Susie, who told me of this tradition from attaching the F-bomb stickers included in this right of passage. Once Susie realized I was not so easily off put, her stories and language became spicier, and the laughter flowed freer.
While waiting for George Kappas, Cheri’s husband and proprietor of this politically incorrect Minnesota landmark to grill our dogs, we sipped our drinks. The daft was cold and the glass clean, all you could ask for in a sudsy brew. The screw driver was not as good. I didn’t see the bottle of orange juice it was poured from, but my guess was the memorvelia on the walls might not be the only thing with a light coating of dust. The drinks did get however get progressively better after a new bottle of juice was opened.
Every where I looked was wrong. Wrong on every level.
There are no velvet pictures of dogs playing poker.
The walls were covered with hockey players supporting only supporters, political genre, naked rubeniesk ladies and bullet holes. Oh there is a stain glass mural, but the image of the Minnesota Gopher hockey mascot is flicking you off.
I was about to get up from our table and causously inspect the art work closer thinking I could not be offended any further when the show begun.
Swearing between the owners in the kitchen at the end of the bar erupted loud enough to momentarily silence the pre happy hour crowd that was congregating.
Know before you go that the F- word rains down at the Gopher like a can of warm Miller that is roughly shaken before opened. The regulars at the bar barley paused before returning to their own conversations. Some of them chimed in. When I looked across the table, even my big friend was blushing.
Our food came as fast the good natured insults and teasing that was flung around the grill. This is not the place for sensitive or easily offended. Or the communist.
The only thing wrong with the Coney Dog at the Gopher name was it’s name.
It is a real deal pure beef hot dog on a toasted bakery bun covered in a thick meat sauce, the onions and cheese spilling over the sides. When I tried my best to pick it up and lady like nibble it from an end, the bad boy fell apart all over the place. But that was to my benefit. The only way I could define the taste of the pure beef frank under the mountain of toppings was to eat it with a fork. I just scooped up the remaining guts off the wax paper with the buttery grilled bun and finished them off. I’m not a hot dog fan but if they used a little fresher gooier cheese it’s deserving of it’s own name if you ask me. And if I learned anything during my afternoon in the dive bar, it’s ok if I tell you my option.
Cheri sat down with us for a few quick minutes after we had finished eating as the clientele continued to file in for a quick dog and a drink. She would occasionally throw insults directed at George behind the bar, and banter with the stool dwellers as we talked. Many of the regulars would stop to hug the foul mouth maveren or pay their respect as she told us of the history behind the place.
The original Gopher Bar was started by her father in law in 1933. Cheri married into the business after twenty three years of a volatile working relationship with George. When she spoke of the cantankerous white haired man behind the bar, it was the only time she visibly softened. One of her three kids who work there tended the bar as we talked. She lowered her voice when filled me in that the crusty old George behind the bar is not the same sweet George at home she fell in love with. I’ll take her word on it as I never drank enough courage to go talk to him before he left his bar for the afternoon.
The Gopher was not always known for their hot dogs. When they first started years ago they grilled more hamburgers, but when local business lunch hours were shortened from sixty minuets to a half hour, people didn’t have time to wait. Their Coney Dog formula as it is today has evolved more than their social reform.
When I asked Cheri how the economy has affected their business she laughed. “Even in a recession people will continue to eat, drink, and f--k.” It’s the f-ing smoking ban that has decreased our business by 40 %. People used to come in here and sit, spent the whole night. Now they are here for half and hour or so and then they go.”
The place and the language is shocking, the owners and regulars not least bit hesitant to tell you what they think. There is no insincere Minnesota nice in that place don‘t cha know.
Cost of our lunch and drinks where only a little more expensive than the funky parking meters out side. But the service and the locals were open and friendly. The environment of the place unlike and other, just be sure to turn your sensitivity filter off before you go. And do not call the bartender sir, that is wrong. Call him by his first name, Asshole.