It’s worn, worn like old church steps or a pair of sturdy gloves. The bar top is calloused and unashamedly bare, stripped of its varnish by beer mugs and pitchers and hands. And it’s fitting, too. It’s said that a person’s life can be read through his or her hands, how manicured or sturdy, how bruised and beaten. So too can a bar top. And it is those same hands that work the grains until the story reads not unlike a person. People come and go, talk and rest and argue. And the bar begins to tell a story, a story of itself and all those who came before it.
This is McGillycuddys at 1135 N. Water St. When I sat down, I immediately felt like I didn’t belong. I felt this way because the bar was interacting like an exclusive club, one that I wasn’t a part of and wasn’t going to be invited to. Everyone knew each other, and they were joking and laughing, buying shots for one another. It is the sub-community that can only exist in the realm of bars and taverns.
My first instinct was to leave. I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to have to put up with this, especially when I was out getting a drink to relax. But I had work to do. I ordered a drink and then another. No one spoke to me, and I to no one, save the bartender, who is a quiet man with good intentions. I didn’t because the opportunity never arose and because the bar was closed off to me, lost in its own world of familiarity.
And then something quite fascinating happened. A football game came on. Then, soon after, the bar was overflowing. Drinks slid back and forth between well-worn hands, wearing away the bar top, wearing away the grooves and nicks left by patrons past, leaving their own marks to be worn away in the future.
I had gained admittance into this bar that I thought was so closed off, so tight-knit with locals only. People began to talk with me, not only affably but also engagingly. After a few rounds more, I was like them, I was one of them, which is to say I was someone from Milwaukee, enjoying a beer and a game in Brew City.
I have the fortune of being forced to go to bars and drink, forced to converse with locals and tenders, ask questions and receive answers. I am forced to genuinely connect with Milwaukee, on a level that only a bar scene can offer. What I’ve found is that there are bars of many varieties and locales, many converging on ethnicities. What makes McGillycuddys special is that it capitalizes on this, welcomes this idea and shuns the rest, making a bar for Milwaukeeans and Milwaukeeans alone. The beauty though, and the continual redeeming factor of bars, is that if you sit long enough, if you drink long enough, in most places it’s enough to become a local yourself.
