Photo credit: Daniel Carlson

I’m new to town, and I like to drink. For reasons I’m not stupid enough to question, 29-95 has decided to pay me (I know!) to bring both of those considerable traits to bear as I explore the city I now call home.
• Read about my past bar trips.

First things first: I call shenanigans on Google Maps, which pointed out the wrong place on my iPhone and nearly led me astray. (Dig the photographic evidence: The red dot is where they said the bar would be, and the blue dot is me at the actual bar.)

The way things went, though, maybe it’d have been for the better.

My last trip to the Heights was a success and introduced me to Alice’s Tall Texan, so I had similarly high hopes when I headed out the other day for Buffalo Fred’s Ice House. I figured I was sure to find a great bar. But that pride brought on a great fall, and I spent the night at a stereotypical roadhouse where a stripper (I think) conducted a beer raffle and all the guys seemed a little too keyed up.Photo credit: Daniel Carlson

The joint clearly used to be a garage, and it’s nestled among car dealerships and old houses just inside the loop, on Shepherd. I walked in to find giant beer posters on the walls next to pickup tailgates that had been removed and painted with some pretty weirdly proportioned women before being hung lovingly next to the neon signs. It’s a pretty open space with some big TVs scattered about and four pool tables next to a squared-off U-shaped bar against the south wall. A buffalo head wearing a construction hat held court over the action.

I made my way to the bar and sat next to a guy in his 40s (or so) who had been stacking his Budweiser caps in front of him all night. When I got there, he was ten beers in and working on the eleventh, and occasionally singing along with the juke. I liked him.

Photo credit: Daniel Carlson I’d just ordered my first drink when I was tapped on the shoulder and turned to find a blonde in a bikini top and boy shorts, perched atop clear heels, smiling and telling me her name was Lindsey. She clutched a wad of blue raffle tickets in one hand as she offered me the other to shake, then asked if I wanted to buy a set of tickets for $5. She said she was running a drawing for a bucket of beer or something. I honestly had no idea how to respond, but in the interest of this here column, and seeing what would happen, I said yes. (If I won, I planned on giving the prize away anyway.) This led to probably the weirdest moment of the night: I didn’t have cash on me, so the bartender added $5 to my tab and slid me some bills, which meant I had to pivot on my stool and hand the how-is-this-not-a-stripper a wad of singles. At happy hour on a Wednesday. This is not a thing you want to experience.

Photo credit: Daniel Carlson I passed most of the night drinking at the bar, watching the clumps of guys come up and talk to Lindsey, who treated them all with the bright, fake cheer of professional dancers nationwide. The guy next to me was content to just drink. The juke pumped out the kind of fratty strip rock that perfectly suited the predatory air; between “It’s Been Awhile” and “Kryptonite,” I half expected Lindsey to start doing things way above my pay grade.

I distracted myself by trying to figure out how the bartender got the job. She was older, Asian, and tiny: the bar practically came up to her sternum, and it seemed like she could barely lean over it between its height and the half-dozen graying Igloo coolers full of beer at her feet. At one point, a girl in her 20s joined her who was also Asian. I thought very briefly about asking if they were related or if it was just a coincidence, but then I’m just a racist in an old blue hoodie holding a raffle ticket he bought from a stripper who freelances for a beer company, and it seems like that’s pretty much the point of no return.
Photo credit: Daniel Carlson
The bottom line: I didn’t win. I asked Lindsey who she worked for, and all I got was that she didn’t work for the bar, and she also told me that there would be two girls there on Friday, so I guess she moonlights for Bud Light or something. I’m usually a (slightly) better reporter, but I think I scared her off asking directly for information like that. Maybe she thought I was vice or something.

Buffalo Fred’s wasn’t alienating or anything; on the contrary, the mustachioed dudes tearing it up there seemed to be regulars, or at least all know each other. But it’s just a completely run-of-the-mill, bland sports bar/roadhouse. It’s long on clichés and short on genuine personality. And really, if this is the kind of thrill you’re seeking, just stay home with a sixer of PBR and some Cinemax. It’s cheaper.