Long before any of us, there was a shack at the end of this wharf pouring for sailors. Schooner crews, cannery hands, lobstermen coming off the water with salt in their beards and a thirst to match.
The owners changed. The floors didn't. Neither did the deal: a cold drink, a hot plate, and a fair price for anybody who worked the water.
Every few decades, somebody new took the keys and promised not to change a thing.
Most of them kept that promise. The chowder recipe got passed down on the back of a bait receipt. The stools got fixed with whatever rope was lying around. And every sailor who came home got a seat at the bar.
Back in '04, I was a lobsterman with a bad back and a worse boat. The Mary Lou sank right at the dock one April morning. Didn't even have the decency to go down in a storm. Just gave up.
So I did what any sensible man would do. I took the insurance money and bought the old place at the end of the wharf. Leaky roof, creaky floors, and a hundred years of sailors' stories soaked into the floorboards.
My wife, God rest her, said nobody would come to a bar that smells like low tide. I told her sailors had been coming for a hundred years, and that's what they'd always called it.
Then that's what we'll keep calling it.
She laughed so hard she didn't argue.
Twenty years with me behind the bar, and a century before that. Same floors. Same stools. Some of the same fellas at the bar, too. They've gotten older. So have I.
THE FISHERMEN
The fishermen come in after the boats, same as they have for a hundred years.
THE LOCALS
The locals come in after work.
THE TOURISTS
The tourists come in by accident and never forget it.
Everybody gets the same cold can and the same fair price. That's the tradition.
Just good food, cheap beer, and a warm spot when the fog rolls in.
