GROOVE LOUNGE

    Tony and I go for a two mile walk four days a week during our lunch break because we don’t see enough of each other on the drive to and from work, forty hours a week at work, Friday nights, Michigan football games, various holidays and assorted weekend gatherings.

   One of the favorite topics on these walks is Friday Night and the horseshit web site devoted to Friday Night (you probably feel it should be better than it is, given the amount of time spent talking about it).  

   On Monday:  “ Last Friday at Edison’s was pretty damn great...I like being a regular at a bar, you just hold up one or two fingers and your beer arrives...Why would we go anywhere else?”

  On Tuesday:  “Christ, we haven’t actually reviewed a bar in months...Where should we go?..That damned web site.”

  On Wednesday’s lunch break, we eat at Potbelly’s, pick the male and female douche of the week in Real Detroit Magazine, play two games of backgammon in a cutthroat race to one hundred and hustle back to work.

   On Thursday:  “We could go to The Well in Dearborn...How about Hamtramck?...I’ll check some web sites out tonight and see what I can find.”

   On Friday:  “This has been one tough week...If it wasn’t for the web site, I would go to Edison’s every week...Nobody reads the damn thing anyway, let’s go to Edison’s.” 

    So, after five months of not stepping foot into a new bar for the purpose of a review, Tony and I decided that this last Friday should see the two great adventurers adventuring.  Based largely on the recommendation of Detroit Free Press writer Esa Esan, young brother and I decided to go back to “work” and visit/review the Groove Lounge in Southfield. 

   In her glowing recommendation, Esan noted that Groove lounge was catering to the over 30 crowd, was large, had a band and dance floor and a wood-fired pizza oven in the kitchen ( eating while on The Tour is strictly prohibited, though tearing through kitchen cupboards after closing time is encouraged).  It sounded promising to our (hairy) ears, so we resisted the pull of Edison’s and set sail for Groove Lounge.

   I had scouted the place earlier in the week, so we had no trouble finding the bright orange building on Franklin Road at Northwestern.  Parking was easy enough in the large lot shared by a wedding hall and drug store.  For those that believe in foreshadowing, the skies opened up and pissed on us as soon as we stepped out of the truck.

   We hustled to the door at the side of the building and walked into a huge bar populated by about twenty people, none of whom appeared to be over thirty ( so much for catering to an older crowd) or interested in having a good time.  Small cliques sat hunched over their drinks, paying no heed to the two crestfallen Irishmen entering the bar.

   “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”  I think Tony wanted to leave.

   I’m the older brother, the one with the cool head and I insisted that we grab at least one quick beer at the nearly deserted long bar.  There, we could rationally plot the inevitable next move.

   Despite the absence of paying customers, the sloppy barmaid at the end of the bar placed us squarely in the pay me no nevermind club.  Anthony and I grew more agitated by the second, and just as we were about to pull the plug sans beer, she bounced our way.  Wait, false alarm!  She held up one chubby finger, waltzed by and did some non-essential business at the opposite end of the bar.  As strange as this may sound, I was now so pissed off that I couldn’t leave.

   Finally, this disgrace to barmaids everywhere came by to take our order.

   “What can I get you ?”

   “ A Miller Light and a Labatts, please.

   “Bottle or draft?”

   “ Bottle.”

   “We don’t have Labatts in a bottle.”

   Tony leaned in. 

   “How about a Michelob Light in a bottle.”

    A roll of heavily made up eyes.

   “We don’t have Michelob Light in a bottle, how about Michelob Ultra?”

   “No thanks, what else do you have in bottles?”

    Literal sigh of disgust from Miss Congeniality.

   “We’ve got everything in bottles.”

   Since we were just informed that they didn’t have Labatts or Michelob Light in bottles, Tony and I looked at each other for a moment and said nothing.

   Clearly disgusted at having to deal with us, she took a deep breath from inside her barrel chest, used her most “I am annoyed with the two dumb dicks in front of me” voice, and started what she felt would be a long recitation .

   “I’ve got Bud, Bud Light...”

   “Bud.”  So much for the long recitation ( Tony is not typically a Bud Man, but he wanted to cut our losses and took one for the team).

   I never expected that getting two beers in a nearly deserted bar would be such a pain in the ass, and I surely never expected to be treated with such disdain by someone paid to make drinks appear and be nice, or at worst, neutral.

   There was a band playing breezy R+B, though nobody danced, or seemed to listen for that matter.  The most dominant characteristic of this dump, after the crap attitude of the barmaid, was the heavy smell of campfire.  That wood fired pizza oven ballyhooed in the Free Press article was toiling in the kitchen.  In the open, no-walls-to-keep-the-stink off-you-kitchen.  The smell of burning wood was so overriding that Tony was afraid it would kill his industrial strength cologne.

   Thinking quickly, we guzzled our beers and began the fifteen minute trek to Edison’s to salvage the night.  We did this in one of the heaviest downpours I have ever driven through.  I had to drive slowly, so it gave Our Kid and I a chance to ruminate on Groove Lounge.  Tony wanted to know how Free Press writer Esan could write the story.  “We didn’t catch this place on a bad night, I bet it’s never crowded period, let alone with the over thirty crowd”.  Maybe she wrote her piece from a press release or phone call, little brother.  Not everyone goes into the field to get their stories, just us great ones.  

   Knowing the  ever changing history of this establishment (It was Excalibur’s and Pi Lounge before it was Groove Lounge), my speculation centered on when this current edition would shut down (soon!) and what it would morph into (an upscale sports bar?).  I decided that even if it turned into a urologist’s office, it would be a better place to visit.

   I guess the bigger question centers around wether it is wise to leave the mother’s milk that is Edison’s and check out other bars for the purpose of reviewing.  We feel it is.  We won’t let the literal and attitudinal stink of Groove Lounge spoil the explorer inside.

   Onward!

PS  As an off the subject aside, I have been given the senior discount for coffee at McDonald’s three times in the past couple of weeks.  Either there is a new directive under the Golden Arches to give anyone anywhere near senior citizen status the discount, or I have entered the fast lane of aging. 

Cheers! Jim

Groove Lounge 

28875 Franklin Road 

Southfield 48034

248-208-7500