Popination Consternation
A series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: Old Chicago
Bars of Yore: the OG Old Chi
Pronounced, of course: Old Shy (or Chai), the now-chain (or is it now-defunct?) bar ‘n grill had its beginnings at the corner of 10th and the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. Now that flagship is closed, and I’m not sure if the big branch one over in Superior is still going or not, but at any rate that one is not at all the same vibe. I’ve been in the not-so-superior Superior one once—it was very Bennigan’s, if you can picture what I mean by that. Makes me wonder: if such an old icon has to close (one that is constantly hopping), what is the exorbitant rent that even it can’t afford? Actually, scratch that: I don’t want to know. Lazy Dog is another past pub like this, and its huge corner space is still languishing, unoccupied, on Pearl and 14th. I’ll have to do another Monday popination piece on that one, too.
Old Chicago
…is on the historic Pearl Street Mall where its patio wraps around one of the busiest intersections of same. Though a pedestrian mall, there are a few car happy roads that pierce it—Broadway being one of them. We used to walk down from the college area (called The Hill because campus is indeed atop a steep hill) and land right on that corner, making our meandering way to the bar area with all the tens and tens of taps shining and ready for us.
The interior of Old Chicago is dim in a comforting way: a brick colored, padded booth darkness that warms the body and soul. I say ‘meandering’ above, because the arrangement of tables within made for a sort of safe maze, with a curving path you need to take to get to the bar area, separated off from the more family-friendly restaurant portion. Old Chicago is the first restaurant I remember noticing when the smoking ban first went into effect in Boulder: I remember exclaiming at whomever I was with, “Waitasecond! They didn’t ask us if we wanted smoking or non! What da…”
The bar area boasted an enormous array of taps, and that’s mainly what Old Chi was famous for. They had a beer club, I don’t remember what it was called, but it was like a mug club where you had their list of 108 (yep!) beers and you’d work your way through the whole list, winning prizes along the way till you were a champion at the end and got your name added on a little brass plaque onto their huge beer club placard on the wall. How far did I get, you’re no doubt asking? Not sure—I do recall I did succeed past the coupons and keychains into more robust prizes like free large pizzas and tshirts, so I must have gotten pretty far.
Some of the names on that big placard had 2X or more champion honors attached, which made me think holy shit the news headlines about college kids dying from alcohol poisoning must be true. Cheers. No but seriously…
They did actually add some safety rules to that club game, since it was apparent that Old Chi was a go-to for college drunks at any time of the week or night. Soon, you weren’t allowed to tick off more than two of the beers on that champion list during one sitting, and other things too—I think, before they closed for good, they discontinued the club completely. I can’t imagine that liability was anything small.
Old Chicago was the only place during those college theatre days (that’s the early to mid ‘90s, kids) where we could get a beer and a snack late at night after a show or rehearsal was over. There were a couple other very grungy bars open late, but none that had food for hungry young actors at midnight. Now there’s a bunch of late-night snack bars open on and near campus (I guess Boulder learned), but on Pearl Street, pubs mostly close up long before those late night needs.
For my popination recollection from this pub far past, I hereby present to you the following little kaleidoscope of memory snapshots from my many many times hanging out there. Let’s hop into the wayback machine, shall we? And let’s take a walk down the bricks to the West end of Pearl, all the way to Old Chicago.
/insert Wayne’s World flashback noises and gestures here/ Actually, here:
^
On my 21st birthday, not many people wanted to go out. It was a Tuesday night, and by the time I got out of rehearsal, it was around 11pm. So I dragged three other close friends from that same play over to Old Chi. To be fair to myself, I might not have actually had to drag them—they were still up too, and always needing a come-down after four straight hours of acting.* So that auspicious Tuesday, a very few of us went out to Old Chi and got seated in our customary window seat. The table was a big half-moon, the booth seats long and crescent-moon; the kind you have to do a lot of scooting to get into. Sometimes, if drunk enough, the person at the apex of the moon would crawl under the table to go to the bathroom, so as not to cause the whole gathering to stand.
Sure, I could have gone out with more bombast and more friends that weekend (and I did of course), but this Tuesday was my actual 21st birthday, dammit, and it was a matter of principle to have a couple legal shots and a beer before bed. And so. My first legal beer was a bottle of Sammy Smith’s Nut Brown Ale. My tastes ran much sweeter back then, and also please note: I had no palate for hot, spicy, or bitter back then. This must be understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the next part of this story.**
I ordered my friends to order me shots, as the only hard alcohol I ever did at home was Absolut Kurant and tonic, or Meyer’s Dark rum and coke. A sweet tooth—I told you.
My fabulously swishy friend ordered me my first shot: “This is my favorite,” he announced with joy, and when it came, it was a pale liquid with a little rose colored sediment floating inside.
“What is it?” I asked, all innocence.
“Just drink it,” he replied. “Don’t smell it first; just do it.”
I obeyed him, because he was a good friend and a sweet gentle human being and I trusted him. I shot it down my gullet.
It was a Prairie Fire.
A Prairie Fire shot contains only two ingredients: gold tequila, and a generous triple dash of Tabasco sauce. My poor sweet friend was distressed by my reaction. He honestly didn’t understand my outrage after I recovered—it really was his favorite, in earnest.
My other close friend ordered me a BJ shot next, which cooled off my mouth and was a nice chocolatey dessert. I don’t remember what’s in those, only that there’s Kahlua and maybe a chocolate liqueur involved, with amaretto and I think also vodka? But the main thing about those shots is the whipped cream on top, and the rule that you’re not allowed to use your hands to imbibe one. They’re strong, but they taste like chocolate cream pie.
And not really much more happened because it was a school night and we were all tired. We snacked on some fries and I finished my beer and we went home. I think I may have had to write a paper that night, but I don’t recall.
^
Several years later, sitting in a different window seat with Sensei (husband) and a few martial arts students, my brother included, lots of chatting and wings and a pitcher or three. I believe our mutual friend Happy was there too. I don’t remember what the pitchers were of, but back then we liked brown ales (still the latent end of my sweet tooth I suppose).
We’re tipsy but not drunk, having raucous but not obnoxious or unruly conversation, laughing and sipping and enjoying each other’s company, when sensei husband tosses a low blow insult at me, hard across the table, like a stomp kick to the ovary. I blink in surprise. He laughs. The table of men follow suit, like the puppet goblins in Labyrinth, laughing in fear at Bowie’s goblin king’s laughter. At least that’s what I tell myself.
I wish wholeheartedly, dear readers, that I could remember what my husband said to me, that day. It’d be nice to actually write out the words, see if it was just me: maybe I was too sensitive because drunk, or maybe hormonal, maybe it wasn’t really a gut punching personal insult that they were all laughing at. But I honestly don’t remember one word of what he said. What I do remember is how it felt. And how astonished I was that the table of good men who I thought were my true friends, my family, on my side as brothers in arms always (one of them literally), all turned toward me as one and laughed.
I clearly remember silently getting up and striding stunned to the restroom, weeping silently there in the stall for a couple minutes, then returning to the table, smiling, fresh faced, only a very little bit pink eyed. When husband asked me what was going on, I smiled in his face, and replied, “Nothing. All good.”
^
Another memory of Old Chi, this time again from college days, years before that marriage. It’s brief, but I’m quite fond, as this was a regular thing I did there and it was at a time when I was in the constant discipline of creative training. A good time in my life. Training times of my life always sit nicely in my memory. The training in this case was all the intense stuff in the tail end of my acting BFA—I had taken my first stage combat class and had freshly fallen in love with that art form, already sensing a taste of that strong affinity that would compel me to make it a major part of my adult career, for the rest of my life.
But I also befriended a graduate student in the even more prestigious Music department, and I started taking private voice lessons from her. She had been the music director for a professional production of Landscape of the Body I’d been in, in a major singing role, and we got to know each other there. Unlike most other relationships from theatre productions, we actually stayed friends after the run was over, and hung out and drank beer and watched terrible old-school Rankin & Bass stopmotion Christmas specials over too much Grand Marnier. You know, the good friend stuff. Anyway.
During that last semester of undergrad, doing all that intensive straight acting training (and just beginning my first foray into stage combat), I felt the lack of the rigorous singing training I had gotten not too many years before in high school. I felt like my singing was getting rusty, and so I cornered this friend, and we set up a deal for regular private voice lessons. She’d give me weekly lessons (she turned me into a “vowel monster,” as she put it) and as payment for these lessons, we’d go out afterwards to Old Chi and I’d pay our tab.
It was a lovely way to catch up, enjoy some tasty buffalo wings, drink many beers, and have girl-and-theatre-gossip time. I’m only as halfway decent a singer as I am today because of this continued education.
Boulder has changed quite a bit since those Old Chi days. Heck, it’s changed exponentially just since the 2020 plague hit. Old Chicago is one of those many Boulder things that went away, never to return. But it will stay in my memory, of the early days of college when I first started drinking, started theatre in professional earnest, started adult relationships and martial arts. It’s an institution of all those things, for me.
*That’s another post: about how alcohol was the only way any of us in acting school knew how to temper the sometimes dangerous high from intense emotional work. I’ve written a little about this here before, and a lot in my memoir.
**Yes, I will continue to reference classic literature. Hey, it’s me.