The place had real character and soul. Burkhardt had started the bar with a solid foundation of amazing characters. He was the Piped Piper of building bars, and his following consisted of writers, poets, artists, musicians, carpenters, rivermen, smugglers and a real life, rail-riding hobo, named Smokey Joe.
Burkhardt called me one day and asked me to take over his shifts. It was his birthday and he didn’t want to work the bar any more, he just wanted to build them. I was 22 years old.
I would always hold great respect for those regulars, soaking in their tales while becoming more aware of the old soul deeply embedded in the place. The building itself was really old. It seemed to carry a good energy within it’s 150-year-old walls. Sadly the wall that held the back bar was later dismantled and moved back a few feet by ownership #4. Nice folks, who just wanted to gain more space, but ended up releasing the spirit that was once a part of Burkhardt’s Oyster Bar, that indescribable feeling of soul when you walked through the door.
This drawing, a self-portrait, was done one night as I attempted to wind down from a shift tending bar. It was around the beginning of the Broadway Oyster Bar era, (ownership #2), where business was tighter and money was being made. We were getting busier every day. The baseball crowd found out about us despite the lack of signage. The place was really changing and so was I. I had quit smoking and drinking because I was pregnant. My whole being was evolving towards its motherly side and it was a strict mother. We were busy enough without having to scold folks for messing with the trees, climbing the fence and just being rude. I was becoming the monster behind the bar.
2 comments:
I remember one night when I think his name was Ed was the owner, I was tending bar and the police came in The Take it Easy had clled the police. The music was to loud. I received a ticket since I was tending bar for loud music. Ed the owner said he would take care of it. He didnt. One night at 430 in the morning comming back from the east side got pulled over, har a warrant for not going to court . Spent 3 days in jail for loud music at the Oyster Bar. John Gorski
Wow John, I didn’t know that…. did you confront Ed about it?
I remember that neighbor was trying to live above his place that summer; he had some rough personal things going on. The bands didn't play louder; he just didn’t have air conditioning and couldn’t sleep with windows up or down. Ed did nothing to try to resolve it.
Artie had contacted Bill McClellan who showed up to see the cops shut down the Soulard Blues band on my shift one night. He even sat and interviewed me for a while. He certainly would have used your story.
The two years Ed managed the bar were it’s dark years. He was such a jerk who seemed to go out of his way to destroy the quality that kept us at that ‘high-class-dive” level.
Did you know that before ruining the bar, Ed worked at Famous and was being investigated for theft by my father?!..!! Crazy… eh?
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