What Makes A Dive Bar A Dive, Really

Ever felt like the universe is charging a 3 percent convenience fee on your patience? We get into the real-life chaos of running bars while the front counter gets tiled, the producer’s out, and someone just flipped us off at a three-way stop. From there we dive into what actually speeds up service on a Saturday night and why the placement of an ice machine can make or break your bottom line.

We also get honest about AI—both the weird and the wonderful. A pop-up AI dating cafe in Hell’s Kitchen sparks a debate about synthetic companionship, while the same technology quietly saves us hours: building clean websites overnight, parsing delivery receipts with a phone camera, and syncing inventory and pricing straight into our POS. We talk “vibe coding,” where you describe what you want and let the machine draft the scaffolding, and we square that with the reality of job shifts, regulation, and the urgent need to stay curious instead of getting left behind.

On the business front, we air out the death-by-a-thousand-fees that small operators know too well: card surcharges, “average” utility bills for closed rooms, and hold queues that start when they call you. We share practical tactics to fight back, including using AI to audit six months of statements and flag silent price creep. To balance the heat, we swap dive bar love letters—The Abbey in New Orleans, The Cala in Dillon—and break down what really gives a bar its soul: forgiving light, fair prices, fast hands, and a room that invites strangers to breathe again.

If you geek out on bar design, small business hacks, and the intersection of hospitality and technology, you’re in the right place. Hit play, then tell us your favorite dive bar and the one thing you’d change in a bar layout to make service fly. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s fighting fees, and drop a review so we can keep building better nights together.

Transcript

Cold Opens, Noise, And New Tile

SPEAKER_02 0:01

I want to talk about three-way stops and how they suck. I got killed by somebody with a f she fli old Lee flipped me off the other day.

unknown 0:07

What?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I'm Ryan, my brother's Chad, and we own bars in Sandusky, Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie. Welcome to Barpod, recorded right here at Paddle Bar, where we talk about the businesses of running bars, what's going on in our lives, and whatever else we find interesting. The good, bad, and the sticky floors. Hey, here we are. It's a Barpod episode seven.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Seven.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Seven. Seven's not. Yeah, seven. Seven. So we're doing seven already. I can't believe it. Some things going on while we're here. You might hear a little bit of noise in the background. Because the new front bar is being constructed with some cool tile right now. Some of that span. Gonna look amazing. Spanish tile. And uh so you might hear a little bit in the background. And we are also without our producer today. He's busy presenting at the VFW, I believe. He's doing trivia there. Is he doing trivia? He's doing trivia there. Okay, so he's busy. So we are doing this solo, so you might not hear some banter from TW in the background. Uh I don't even know if I hit record, so we'll see. I think I did.

Chipotle Rant And “Fix Your Beans”

SPEAKER_02 1:08

There's no red light, you can't tell.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

So uh first, we probably should address uh the shirt that I'm wearing. Fix your beans. Fix your beans. For those of you that are watching on YouTube can see this if you're listening. It says fix your beans. Courtesy of our friends from uh Bowling Green brought that in.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Hilarious. He showed up. I knew it was coming. I had to pretend. He texted me about it and I had to pretend like I didn't know. Yeah. And then uh he brought him in because I don't know if you remember it, but but one of our previous episodes, Ryan, was pretty he was getting pretty down on Chipotle. I uh who? No nobody.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Uh all I gotta say is fix your beans, and now I'm gonna say fix your gas. And I'll tell you about that here in a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Well, I'll tell you what, Chipotle, they're upsetting me anyway. I'm starting to become I'm starting to be on your train with the whole Chipotle situation. They just the CEO just admitted that they're raising prices because they can. Because they can. Because because only middle to upper class Americans eat at Chipotle was his was his thing. That's what he said. Uh yeah, that's serious. I might have to take a break from Chipotle.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Well, I've always been a low class in everything. So I'm not eating fucking fuck your beans. So thanks, Dave and Jody, for that.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I did oh my, so good. So good. Thank you guys. Uh the other thing is if you can tell, uh I'm a little nasally. Uh just getting over a little cold. Yeah. Just getting over a little cold. So I apologize for the for the nasal uh sound, but that's what it is. You gotta get you gotta keep going. I believe I told Ryan, I said maybe we should do it on Thursday. And you know what his answer was? His retort?

Beers On Deck And IPA Fatigue

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Take a shot, tequila and shut up. I did say that. Yeah. Uh we are doing without the tequila. Uh, however, we do have uh what'd you pour us today here, Chad? I poured us a uh Sierra Nevada Pills.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Um it's it's very clean, very good.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Crisp beer from the Pacific North Northwest.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Yeah, pretty low in ABV. It's like a four point California.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

It's California. It's Sierra Nevada. Yeah. I think they had a brewery in North Carolina though, too. Okay, but it's uh it's west. It's west. Yeah, that's where that's where we started.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

It's a really good beer. It's super clean, uh Pilsner. And uh you know it's funny. Usually when I have Sierra Nevada stuff, I feel like it's an IPA. Yeah.

Corrections Corner: Cocktail Cast

SPEAKER_01 3:07

This is a nice change. It's a nice, it's yeah, I you know that brings up. I'm not drinking as much IPA as I used to. No, they banged it. Don't get me wrong. Main lunch all day long. Yeah. Uh but IPA-wise, I'm not into it like I used to be. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Well, hey, let's get into it here. Uh we have some uh for our first segment here, we have callbacks and corrections. Yeah, and I believe the first callback um is uh maybe from the movie Cocktail. I should have and some others. Uh maybe uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

I said Elizabeth Hurley in Cocktail. It's Elizabeth Elizabeth Shue, and I knew that. I don't know what I was thinking, but I Hurley was in few people called you out on that. I saw some messages on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Someone texted me.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Listen about when you put yourself out there, you're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna make money. You're gonna make mistakes. Shoe, and I should have known that. Like everybody had a crush on Elizabeth Shue when you were younger in that age. Um, but Hurley was, wasn't she in like Austin Powers or something? But I she had she had brown hair.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Hurley was in Austin Powers, right? Good form. Yeah, the old, yeah, that's more puns in that movie. That's a good one. That's a lot of that's a good show. Austin Powers.

Aging Into Birds And Birdwatching

SPEAKER_02 4:05

What now now you had another little note on here about birds. What's going on with the birds?

SPEAKER_01 4:10

I don't know. Did we mention birds in the last episode? The reason I wrote birds, and you said, I think this was after a few beers, you said, have you noticed when you get older, you talk about birds more?

SPEAKER_02 4:19

You listen, it's universal, I'm pretty sure, across the board. The older you get, you start bird watching. Oh, I know what it did. And it starts in small increments. Like, oh, look at that. Uh I was out. North Crestered Walter.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

I was out for a walk with the dog the other day in Lions Park, and I took a picture of an eagle and I said it to the family chat. Yeah, you came back and you said, I think that's a dovetailed macaroon.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

I think I said, I think that's a cooper's hawk. That's what you said. I've got one in my backyard. There it is.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

And I went and said, I said, no, no, I believe that's a juvenile eagle. And is it you were correct? But the fact that we are like discussing Cooper's hawks and juvenile eagles, and I'll tell you what, I do they have large talons? I don't want to say I'm a birder, but I like watching some birds. I'll tell you what, it's just time. It comes with age. Certain birds come around when it snows. I can see getting a nice camera out, going for a little hike in the woods, taking photos of some birds.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

You know, our mother, she's the one, she's into them. She's into it. She's into birds.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, she's now she's starting to rub off on me. I'm into birds. I I like birds. Well, my wife likes birds a lot too. See, uh, Ken's likes to go out and check out the birds. And uh, some of our regulars, too. Uh Andy and uh Christine. We're right into birds. This is here we go. We're changing the format of the podcast. This is no longer bot podcast uh bar pod. It's called tweaking with birds. No, bird pod.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Bird pod. Bird pod. We're passionate about birds and we don't care.

AI Dating Cafe In Hell’s Kitchen

SPEAKER_01 5:36

No my god, what are we talking about? All right, on from the birds. Let's move to, and you brought this one up, and I got I got some AI chat I want to talk to you a little bit in this, and I've been just like, I sent you that one about that weird bar. Well, that's what that's what's on the script here. Um, oddly enough, helped made by AI. Uh but I'll read it and then you uh tell me what you think. So an AI bar in New York City. Yeah, uh, it was a pop-up in a wine bar in Hell's Kitchen, and it was built as the world's first AI dating cafe. Tables were set for one person and a phone stand with headphones. You sit across from your AI partner's avatar and a scream, and it's a like a romantic vibe vibe with a screen that appliced you pick from pre-made AI companions to build on your own, text chat, uh video calls, and uh there was also serving drinks. Now, it's not telling me that the AI itself was serving drinks. We talked about that on the last episode. So this was basically a bar set up. Sounds like people were still serving drinks, yeah, but it was like a dating thing where it's kind of like speed dating with a computer, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

And they it sounds like to me they introduced it during Valentine's Day weekend because people are all excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Right. So there were single people going and talking to AI companions.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

That's not good. That's scary.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

I'm all I like. Listen, we can talk a little bit how that scares me. I don't think you should should be doing that.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Simple as that. I listen, listen, I don't think you should maybe be doing that. Although it's it's tough. I don't want to judge people if you're uh if you're lonely, maybe you're not uh very social or have that you know that bone in your body. No, no pun intended.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Are they gonna have new accessories for your eye? I was just gonna say, like, I like what kind of I'm not even gonna get into it. What kind of is it gonna be a USB C adapter? Oh, did you hear that? That's something's breaking up there.

Useful AI: Inventory, Websites, And Apps

SPEAKER_02 7:25

You know what? Between the beer, the cold meds, and the smell of glue in the air, yeah. I'm all you're all sorts of and a beer.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

I'm hoping I can uh dim this audio in in post. Yeah. Listen, you know what though? It's part of part of owning a bar. Part of owning the bars. Speaking of owning a bar, we'll get we'll be we'll well let's yeah, let's let's break back into the little AI.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Final thought on AI companions. Uh it's hard for me to it's hard for me to uh uh uh go against it because maybe you know not everybody's has the gift of gab, but God, it seems weird, doesn't it? Here's what I what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do when you get all excited? You know what I mean? USB COVID.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

You oh that's the adapter, the adapter. That's right. Most likely tweak yourself or whatever. Tweak yourself. Let me tell you where AI is working, though. Keep it clean. And and I I think that it's I've been spending a lot of time on AI uh it's in the last few weeks. And I talked to you yesterday, you were all excited. I've made new websites, obviously. Yeah. Something I I I could make websites, but clunky ones in the past. Um and now I was able to make clean websites in a couple hours, right? Um I've started to use it for our inventory. Yeah. Uh I made an app today that I'm working on. I'm not complete with it yet. I'm using Claude. Uh, that's anthropics. And I'm making an app on my phone where I can literally take photos of uh our receipts from from when we get delivery. And then that will upload directly into Square, update my inventory, update my wholesale pricing versus my retail pricing so I can start to look at the numbers. And that's all automatic. Yeah. That I created my own app to do that versus the past way to do that. You know, old school is manual inventory. Right. New school, next thing is now, okay, use AI. I started out with AI extracting that, and then I would upload a CSV file to Square. Yeah. Right. So that was happening there. But now I don't even have to do the upload part. It's doing on the back end from my phone while I'm on the fly. So this is what everybody's talking about, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:22

It's it's AI is not not maybe in some cases not completely automating workflow, but it's making it extremely efficient. Yeah. How many hours do you think you're saved yourself just yesterday when you were doing um uh the the population of your website for your for your hotel, for your motel?

Jobs, “Vibe Coding,” And Regulation

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Oh, oh, I I uh hours. I went to I had we've got the new uh the new uh seater with course with the TEAX bar um over in Bayview. Yeah, and I have to update the sites and the back end with all the different rooms, like the captain's room and the and and uh something that would just to fill just to populate the website. So I'm on the website just to populate that would take me probably an hour, hour and a half for each room. Did it for you? I gave it the parameters. I went to bed. By morning it was done, saved on the website.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

So let me, let me, let me sachet on over to something else I heard. Did you say sh sachet? I did maybe a little a little uh dance walk. Now, I I believe the and we're we're getting a little off topic, but but let me let me just roll with it since we're we're going AI. I believe it was fix your topic. I believe fix your beats. I believe it was the Microsoft CEO that came out a few maybe last week and said he thinks the timeline is 12 to 24 months that 50% of white-collar jobs are going to be gone because of AI. AI, do you what do you think about that? Because what you're describing. I think it seems like maybe we are the ones that are already happening right now, website design.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, basic coding. That is our AI can already do that. If you have uh uh just a bit of skill, you can figure that out, right? They call it they call it as a matter of fact, if you listen to the daily, uh today's Wednesday. So listen to the the uh Wednesday seventh, what did we got? The eight eighteenth. Yeah, uh today's daily uh talks about it. They call it vibe coding. Yeah. So instead of you being a coder, you just use AI and go buy your vibes. But that's kind of what I did for these websites and it worked. And it works and now it's working for these, and then it's sparking more ideas. Um, but you're also learning a little bit. Yeah, but I do think that I think it's very important to be up to date on AI and play with it because if you just kind of let it behind you, you're gonna be in trouble in trouble. Like uh eventually, I mean, I mean, if you're an accountant, all that data, I mean you should be able to do it as the accountant, right? But you probably don't need five assistants anymore. You know what's wild is is is for somebody law firms, like legal clerks, I mean I know.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

I know any any any any paperwork heavy job, you gotta assume that it it might be it might be tough to keep that.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

I and I think it might um it might uh um it it it might open the playing field. Like we talk about all the bad things of the AI, and there are a lot that are scary, no doubt. Sky Skynet, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

That's natural human behavior. So you have to look at the bad side of things.

Upgrading Daiquiri Dock For Speed

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Uh but if you look at the good side of things, it potentially uh can level the playing field for someone for like us who are entrepreneurs. Like when you get into business as a small business owner, you go, okay, I want to open a candle shop, right? Right, right. But what you don't realize, you just want to sell candles. Now you have to deal with the but you have to deal with the inventory, the accounting, uh, you know, the the marketing, payroll, all that stuff. AI can take care of for you so you can focus on what you actually love versus trying to figure out everything. That's what that's why I think so many entrepreneurs, small business owners get burnt out or passed by corporate America, because they have uh warehouse of people that can do it. Right. We don't. We have two of us. Right. I mean, I don't think we're uh I'm still gonna have to clean toilets, but who knows? Maybe down the line. It's interesting. Stay ahead of it. I think I don't know for sure. There's no way the the my opinion changes daily on it. Yeah. But I think staying ahead of it is a better way, and hopefully we have governments that regulate it to use for positive, not negative. I think that's a big part of it. If we let it go evil, it's gonna go evil and it's gonna be right up.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Terminator Skynet style. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So maybe next thing maybe next podcast, we will roll back and see if there's some reviews about the AI companion bar in Hell's Kitchen. And we can see how it went. Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's see how it went. We'll see how it went because it it's to say the least, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Did anyone bang an iPad? I guess would be the first question. Blacklight in that place will look like a Jackson Pollock.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Oh boy. Oh boy. What's next here?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Uh, you know, next we're kind of getting into some business stuff.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Uh yeah, we gotta go, we gotta go some bar stuff.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

So we'll start out with what we just did 10 minutes ago. It's kind of funny. We uh and this is this is stuff that just happens in the bar. Um and then and then uh we're moving because we're working on that new front bar. So we're daiquiri, if you've been to paddle bar, uh Dacquery Dock is the bar that is on the south side of the building, faces uh uh Water Street.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Yep.

The Grift: Fees, Utilities, And Hold Music

SPEAKER_01 13:48

And it typically had been just a frozen drink bar on the weekends. On the weekends only. We are updating that bar, putting a beautiful new top on it, and so that bar can do everything that the original bar, uh the original paddle bar that overlooks the water uh can do. So on weekends it's gonna the attempt, and we'll see how it works. We'll be talking about this in July probably, yeah. Is that gonna open the flow? Because we get some lines and we're trying to uh minute out. But that means you have to make the bar able to do speed. So so much matters. Where's your ice machine? Where's your soda gun? So we spent 15 minutes trying to figure out where exactly we're gonna move the ice machine. We're like, well, we'll put it over here by the speed rail. Yeah, there's no place for it. But we need the soda gun to be close to the ice and close to the vodka. And so what we did, we just end up moving the speed rail and the ice machine and problem solved. Right. So 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, we're good.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

We're good. So you'll what you'll see in a lot of bars, and and uh if you hang around bartenders or servers, and you you'll you'll probably hear this or know this. But a lot of times bars and restaurants, uh maybe not so much restaurants, but a lot of bars are set up kind of inefficiently, and you'll hear the bartenders go, God, I wish this was here, I wish this was here. Well, lucky for us, we have before we set this place up, which goes to show with the new one. That that's a huge thing for us is to set it up as efficient as possible, as efficient as possible.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

So that when efficient, fishing.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

So that when when you're in the weeds, uh, as Anthony Bourdain used to say, you you can you can get as much product and money drinks out as you can as possible, as possible. And I think we're that's true. That's what he just, Ryan just referred to. Exactly. You gotta you gotta make it quick. I mean, you don't you want sometimes you want a line, but you don't always want a line.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Let me tell you how I've been feeling lately, and this will tie into what we're gonna talk about a little bit. I've been you've been feeling grifted all the time lately. 100%. Like everybody's just coming at you. Like I paid my I paid my property taxes the other day, yeah. Uh, which is fine. Like I'm okay with paying my property taxes. It goes with schools, that's fine. Sure. But I'd like to put it on a credit card so I can get some points. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Oh, here's your 3% rate on your credit card. You know, why are not only our municipalities doing it, corporations are doing it, everybody's passing down the fees to the consumer. Yeah. Like it's just insane. I was on you ready for this? Let's hear it. You're ready for this? I got one too. I got one. So right along this line. Um it's BS. It's it is BS. And you know what? Columbia Gas. Uh-oh. Eat it. Uh-oh. Fuck them gas pipes. You can't just keep using the same bit. Yeah, I can. That's my gonna be my thing. All right. Uh, you ready for this? So our gas meter here at Paddle Bar is inside. So apparently there's some federal regulation that they have to come check it every year. Okay. You have to have access and of course make sure you don't have a parrot running around or whatever. But that's the you know, so they call me. You got a pair in your pipes? So they got a pair in the pipes. So I see a see a see a phone call from Columbia Gas, which in my phone index it says Columbia Gas jerks. Nice. Um and it says, Oh, are you the uh you know, can you speak on behalf of Paddle Bar? All right, yes. Okay, great. And it's of course it's a robot talking to me, so this is some irony with our AI stuff. Boy. I said, sure. Uh uh, and then they transfer me. I think, okay, we'll transfer you to an operator. They put you on hold. And then as soon as I get as soon as it says, Thank you for calling Columbia Gas, our our volumes are high right now. It'll be 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

There's nothing worse. Talk about a slap in the face.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

So what you called me. We need to talk to you about your gas. We're gonna transfer. That shit pisses me off. So that's just more of that grift. Like, I'm sorry, at some point there does need to be like an customer service. Yeah, we're paying you, not the other way around. You're not doing me a favor.

Fighting Back With Data And AI

SPEAKER_02 17:16

And you know what sucks about this too? As as uh Amber just found out the other day. A lot of times you can catch them mid-grift and change things. Sure. So, like uh our our our the medical business, yeah. Well, that too, our garbage at home, right? Uh-huh. It started going up incrementally. I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but it started going up incrementally. Okay. So you you started paying$57 uh every three months or whatever it is, right? And then all of a sudden,$63,$65,$71. And this is yearly. It goes up yearly. But if you call them and pull the old, you know, Amber did it the other day, called Republic, and said, Hey, uh, whoops, so throwing it. I don't know. You don't watch out who owns the garbage stuff. You'll end up. You'll end up on uh Sister Island out there. They did take to be fair, they did take care of it, but she said, Hey, we you know, we we're gonna end up basically, I don't want to say threatening, but we're gonna we're gonna change garbage companies because you know it's been going up. And what did they say? Oh, what can we do for you? Let's see if we can get the uh the the new customer promotional rate for you. So, okay, so so existing customers just boom, get slammed. And then and then if you're a new customer, you get a good price. But sometimes you can call in and cut them off mid-grip. Oh, you ready for this one? But then they'll put you on holes.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

These assholes from uh from the uh from uh Ohio Edison. Let's go ahead and jump right on. Why we're on utilities? Jeez, I don't even want to start it up. You ready for this energy? You ready for this? Yeah, we can collectively say these guys suck. There's no doubt. I don't I don't have any problems. They're taking down all my trees. Oh yeah. Don't yeah. So back the back uh seven rooms at the at the cedar. So it's a separate building. We uh I've turned off the water and cut off the power. Sure. Like there's nothing on in there. Sure. Uh because we're we're redoing it. Uh I get a bill for my power last month. It's$435. Yeah. I said, how the hell is that possible? There's nothing on. Oh, well, it's an average. It's an average. So now I gotta I gotta go out of my time to call and request a meter read and maybe get my credit back. T-Mobile, same way. I got new cell phones, they were supposed to pay for it. They didn't do it. Okay, so now can can we what's called the grift, man.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

The grift. Let's come back here full circle. Can we, can, can you create uh an AI bot that takes care of all your grifting schemes?

SPEAKER_01 19:30

You don't even need to create an AI bot. You could literally just, I think your best bet if you wanted to, if you wanted to get behind this, download your bank statements from the last six months. Yeah. Download your credit statements for the last six months. Anything you have, plug it into AI and say, here's my problem. It'll analyze them and spit back what you're doing.

Three-Way Stops And Road Rage

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Okay, okay. That's how you do it. Listen, so let me let me break this up. All of a sudden, we just did a solid maybe four or five minute like.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

We completed a lot. It sounded like the bitching shows.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Sorry about that. So let me let me say this. Let's let's loop back around. Let me let me reset it with a funny little story. Let me see if you've got any of this. All right. So this one is specific to town, but they're all over the place. Okay. You know over by Target? Okay, this is just a little gripe of mine, but it's funny. Over by Target and Red Lobster there. Uh Route 250.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Yeah. I'm Route 250. You're rolling into Target. We gotta we gotta get that for our for our guests who are listening in. Um there's somebody in Australia. I know who that is. Incredible. Shout us out if you're listening to Australia.

Spring Deadlines And Hiring Barbacks

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Um, I'm gonna I need to I need to go to Australia, but that's on my bucket list. Anyway, right on. So most calendar, but no, that's don't do that. Uh so most people are used to four-way stops, right? Eight fosters in Australia. Uh yeah, they do. It's a garbage beer. Um four-stop signs, like four-way stops. That's what people are used to. Yeah. The one by Target on 250 by Red Lobster is a three-way stop, right? So stop signs on both sides, one over by Target. But if you're rolling through into Target, there's no stop sign. Oh, that front area? Oh, it's horrible there. So, but what happens, I think a lot of people just assume it's a four-way stop. So you, if you're the car coming in, you gotta be real tough. You gotta be real, real, real gentle, defensive driving, because somebody's bound to blow through on the stop signs. They think clip you. They think that you have a stop sign, but you don't. Right. So just rolling through the other day, and some lady hit me with boom. Gave you the finger, gave me a huge finger. They love it. And and and it, I was not in the wrong. I was just driving. I didn't have a stop sign, but she was on her horn and hit me with a big, just, just a hard, a hard finger. Uh just gave you the old one finger fluid. I was laughing, but then after I was like, God damn it.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

People are meaner today, I think. They are with driving. I think people are losing it when they're driving. I think we need stricter driving rules. Three way stops. The kids aren't even driving anymore anyway. So we might as well just bump that up a little bit. Be like Germany. Make it a little tougher to get a driver's license, I think.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Well, toe ever who flipped me off at Target, I'm gonna get you a nice fruit basket. What movie? Ghostbusters. Well done.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Peter Vinkman, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Peter said that.

unknown 21:57

Peter Vinkman.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Peter Vinkman. I'm gonna get you Vinkman.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

And I'm gonna get you a nice fruit basket. Uh little update. Um I'm getting a little I I I don't I don't want to bitch anymore, but my stress level's going up a little bit because deadlines are approaching. Sure. Tax tax season. Well, tax season is not that. Uh AI helps with that. But I mean getting the bar done, getting teaks done, getting cedar done. We are in a bit of a transition period. We are in that as soon as it got a little warm outside. Like I started going, it's gonna snow. Oh boy, it's not frozen anymore. I gotta get going.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

I know, but yeah, I think everybody's feeling that. But you know what? Because uh the the uh the gentleman that was bringing our soda and stuff today, he said, you know, it's that time of the year. I was like, don't jump the gun yet. It's gonna sound like that.

Dive Bar Love: The Abbey And The Cala

SPEAKER_01 22:36

It's not that time of the year. We always we get excited this time of year because we get a little highown's here. It gets you know it gets above 29 and we freak out a little bit. Yeah. Um, but it is uh we still got some time. But um, you know, that's why I don't set hard deadlines. But it is coming, rooms are being done, concrete's getting poured, those sort of things. Yep. Uh by the way, uh hiring, you know, we have to do a little bit of that this year at Paddle Bar. We are gonna need a bar back because I think our our boy Jackson is going on to be a good one. He was so good. He was good, good. Hopefully he's listening to this. We're gonna crash your dorm in Dayton one of these days. Jackson, we're gonna miss you, buddy. Uh, but uh so if anybody knows uh someone who's home from college and needs a summer job bar backing Friday and Saturday nights, get a hold of us. Hey, it's fun, it's lucrative. It is lucrative. You'll make some money, meet a lot of people, and uh yeah, it's a good time. Yeah. We're pretty easy bosses, I think. I think we are. I think we're nice for the most part. And just do your job and I'm pretty good with it. Pretty easy. I'm pretty good with it. All right, on to a suggestion. Oh, from Doug. From Doug. I like this one. Uh this is a great one. Doug, one of our uh one of our favorite paddle bar guests. Uh-huh. Favorite dive bars. You each can pick a we'll each pick a favorite. What makes it a dive bar? You don't this is telling me don't steal stuff from dive bars. You don't do that. So anyway, can you intentionally build a dive bar or does it happen right organically? First, let's go with your it doesn't have to be your favorite, but a favorite a dive bar use experience that you love.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

It just popped in right when you said it.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

You ready for it? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

It's called the Abbey. Oh, we got New Orleans. Oh boy. Yeah, there's many stories from the Abbey. It's uh God, it is such a good bar. That is a great bar.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

You walk in and it's uh It's not it's not on uh Bourbon Street. I don't know what street is on is on. It's kind of near Cafe Dumont, I believe. It's a little area there. It's about a little closer to the river. I want to say it was like a block and a half from Cafe. I mean it's yeah, it's close to everything.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

But uh you walk in and you know those uh plastic um what do you even call those? Those little plastic uh they they hang in solo pieces. They're almost like uh you see them at like butcher shops and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Oh, it's like a curtain to keep the heat and cool out, and that's that's in the door there. It's in the door. Yeah, like it's like you're walking into a meat cleaver place, but it's a bar. You pop your way through those and it's dark. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

And you know, so you come out of this the Norland street. Obviously, I've been to the Abbey and we have a story about that. Yeah. Uh but you come out of that heat of the Norland street and you walk into this bar, it's air conditioned, but it's behind like a meat curtain.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

It's behind a meat curtain, you walk in, it's dark. Uh there's there's t-shirts up in the rafters that have clearly been there for about seven years because they're disintegrating. Oh, there's barely yeah. Um there's a there's a I think who knows if it's that way because it was like four or five years ago. This no ten years ago. But uh remember that the special was like five dollars for a Jameson and a and a beer. Yeah, yeah, you're not getting that anymore. And I'll let now you you're gonna have to tell yours, but you have to tell the little story when we were there for my bachelor party. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

You gotta tell it. So this was Chad's bachelor party down. We had T Dub with us as well. Uh-huh. Uh he had all his buddies from college, so of course they were fired up. Um we were partying at the Abbey. So I don't know what time. I mean, it was late night. Uh huh. I finally gave up. Went back to the hotel, woke up at 8 a.m., maybe 7 30. Like, all right, obviously we're still going. Yeah. Let's go right back to the bar. Thought maybe we'd catch you because you know it's New Orleans. Walk into the bar, which we had been to 6 p.m. the night before. I don't know exactly when. Walk into the bar. About 8:15. Walk in the bar, and the, and you know, it's empty because it's 8.15 in the morning. There's like one old guy smoking a cigarette at the end. I believe they still allow you to smoke there. Um, and I just kind of like, oh boy. All right, well, let's go with the Jameson and a beer because it's what I'm gonna get you fired back up. And the bartender looks at me and goes, Ryan? I was like, yeah. He's like, Yeah, you remember me from last time? I was like, oh yeah, yeah. He's like, Yeah, your brother just left about five minutes ago.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

We wow. We didn't, we never, we never went to sleep. Wow. That was now, granted, that's it's it's your bachelor party. There's certain things that you can do that you wouldn't normally do. And we uh I believe we went on a 27 and a half or something.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Is that the time one of your buddies FedEx to marijuana to uh to New Orleans? I don't know. You can say that now. That's legal now. Oh, you can yeah? I mean, we're not gonna name anybody, but uh maybe you probably can't FedEx pot, but but uh you know I it's legal, and so I don't know. FedEx brown brain game trouble. That was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

FedEx brownies, I believe it was. FedEx brownies. That's what that's eventually what we bring out. That's what put you guys to sleep. Yeah, that'll happen. What are we doing? All right, uh on Anna your favorite or one of your favorite dive bars.

Licensing, Inspections, And Cost Overruns

SPEAKER_01 26:58

I'm gonna go back to uh, you know, I always talk about Key West, so I'm gonna not do Key West today. Okay. Um one of my favorites is in uh Summit County, uh Colorado. And uh I don't know that it's a dive bar because once again we can get into what a dive bar means. I mean, dive bar, neighborhood bar, I've heard people have called this a dive bar. So I'm gonna go with the cala.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Which is an Irish bar in Dillon, Colorado on Summit Cove, it was close to my house. And I spent a lot of great times there. It was one of those places, once again, you didn't know everybody. Uh had a great St. Patrick's Day party. Um I see what you're saying. And I knew the bartender. As a matter of fact, I did see. Do you remember Kathleen? Yeah. She passed away. What? Yeah, she passed away recently. So RIP to Kathleen. She was a great bartender, good sound shooting person. Um, but that's a cool bar. Uh and uh yeah, it's still there, and uh, and I have some good memories uh of that place. And yeah, I put that up on a on a good bar, it was walkable.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Yeah, and I can see what you're saying though, because maybe not so much a dive bar. I mean, good it was like really good food. So I you know it's not like dive bar food.

Movies, Colds, And Community Middle Finger

SPEAKER_01 28:01

The fish and chips there was phenomenal. Yeah, oh yeah, their uh shepherd's pie. Yep, yep. Well, there we go. So that's our dive bar section. I'll think of some more. We'll keep doing that. That's a good one. And uh, but it'd be interesting to hear what people think their classifications are for dive bars. I don't know exactly what what it means. I think it's more of the feel than it is anything else. Agreed. I mean, I don't think you know people are gonna call the bar at chili is their favorite dive bar, but you never know. Listen, you it's it's all right, margaritas. It's subject to interpretation. Okay, where are we at on time? Oh, we are doing great, I must say. Where are we at? Uh, we're about 30 minutes. Oh that's not bad at all. Oh, so uh McKenzie's sister, Addie, has been giving us some great feedback and helping us out. Um, and uh we're gonna start working on that fishbowl questions now. We just have a few questions um uh that she uh submitted. Uh and then we're gonna hopefully some more people uh, you know, can kind of kind of kind of uh uh add to that for us. She was like, what's the update on the second bar, where I'm at, Memorial Day timeline. So uh we're rocking and rolling. We're still on the deadline. The deadline is Memorial Day weekend. Nice. I am not a hundred percent sure that it's gonna happen on Morial Day weekend. Uh we are good based on the time. I'm still gonna shoot for that, but I'm not gonna officially announce that. I think that's something that you learn as being in the bar business. A lot of things can happen. Sure. Uh construction and construction and so forth. And also um liquor licenses, those are amazing how much of a pain in the butt they are because they vary from state to state. Um so I'm dealing with transferring liquor license and how long that takes and how long uh the folks in Columbus get it done. Luckily, uh, or luckily, we gotta we have a good if you find a good liquor agent that can help you out and get one that understands that you're trying to open a business, can really give you good vice, that's the best way to do it. We've got we're lucky with that.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Um but yeah, the process can take a while, transferring versus buying one. Uh it's uh it can be a challenge. Luckily, we were able to secure one and we got it processing. But they still have to do inspections and things like that. Of course. While they do inspections, they're gonna find something that you didn't do right. It's gonna cost you more money at some point. It's always gonna cost more money. Yeah. Anything you budget for, be ready for the next thing. I just heard myself mouth breathe, you know, because of my cold. Because you're cold? Yeah, and it's uh you sound a little bit. That's okay. At least we're getting the podcast done today because you uh you were ready to push it till tomorrow. I was gonna push till tomorrow because I didn't fight for consistency because I think that we record it on Wednesday. I'll edit tonight, release it sometime tomorrow. So by Friday morning, everybody can listen to the pot, bar pot, get ready for the weekend. It turned out and roll right into Powell.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

I'm glad you pushed it because it turns out that uh, like I said, cold medicine um glue and beer puts me in the right mindset. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Name the movie. Pick the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. What is that from?

Feedback, Where To Find Us, Sign-Off

SPEAKER_01 30:44

I picked the wrong week to stop amphetamine. Sniffing glue. What is that? Oh, come on. Say it. Let's see if I can give you one more little line. Okay. Clearance, Clarence. What's your Victor Victor? Oh, airplane. There you go. Well done. Highly recommend that movie if anybody hasn't got it. Oh, you know what? We we we talked about bar movies uh last time. There's one called Trees Lounge I haven't watched yet. Trees Lounge. Trees Lounge has got Steve Bishimi in it as the main character. Oh. So I haven't watched it yet. It looks like a good bar fly movie. It looks like it takes place. The entire movie takes place in a bar, in a in a dive bar. So that could be fun. Trees Lounge.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

So uh still think about that chick that gave me a middle finger at Target.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

You're not happy about that.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

You know what? I brought it back up. It was like three weeks ago. There she goes. A good middle finger will get you. You know, uh it will. Just boom.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

When people people toss people toss them out too easy these days. You know, I never throw out middle fingers. Stop, stop. Oh, did I forget to turn off my little Did you hear that? My phone's on. I thought I'd put my alarm thing on it. Get your stuff together. I know. You know, and of course it's some corporate thing texting me. Let's see what it is. That's yeah, square. Umtifications. I freaking hate bang, bang them. Um what was I going to do? You're talking about the middle fingers. I was talking about the middle fingers. So upset about we should be giving the middle fingers to corporate America that's trying to screw us with three percent rates, credit card rates, screwing you through your gas meter, your electric, your the gas coming. Those are who they should not let's stop giving the middle finger to each other. A collective middle finger. A collective middle finger, a community to the big guys that screw us over. I'll tell you what.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

Every day.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Every day. Every day. Constant grind.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Constant grip. Constant grip. Let's all give them a collective middle finger for the bar podcast.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Anything else before we get out of here? I feel like uh that was a pretty quick bar pod, uh, but uh that's okay. We're about 32 minutes. That's perfect. We said we never really wanted to go. We wanted to keep it around 30 minutes. Yeah, 30, 35 minutes is where we where we try to keep it. Um our span of attentions aren't huge these days. Yeah, they're right in today's. Yeah, we're we're going all over the place today.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Yeah, I did no see this. I'm having I'm not having trouble with this beer.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

It tastes great, but uh you could I can tell I'm a little bit. Beer helps. You know, whiskey was basically how you cured colds before. That's how you cure everything. Go back to that, we'll be good. All right. We're gonna get out of here, Chad, unless you have anything else you can think of. Love some feedback. Um, please do that on the YouTube page, Instagram page.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

I'll keep I'll keep highlighting our whatever beer we're drinking. I'll keep highlighting that on the Instagram page. I got some good feedback about that on the last one.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yep. Uh we you can find us on all the all the channels now. Obviously, barpod.net is where uh you can get to everything. Barpod419 on Instagram. Uh yeah, we got things coming. Uh we'll I'll try to keep everybody updated on what we're doing with Paddle Bar. Uh Volstead across the street is just, you know, still doing its thing. Yeah the dive bar. Uh dive bar? That's not a dive bar. Yeah, see now. What Volstead? Volstead's not a dive bar, right? But it kind of feels like you go in there on a Monday and it's dark. It's like four or five of the same guys there, great guys, and they always want to hang out and and the same group of people. Maybe that's another thing we'll we'll talk about in the next one about what constitutes. Spend a little more time on it. Yeah. So yeah. Other than that, uh send us the questions, topics.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Yeah, let's get out of here before I sneeze on something.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Okay, sounds good. We will see you next week. BarPod is hosted by Ryan Whaley and Chad Whaley, produced, recorded, and occasionally rescued from bad audio decisions by our dad, Tom Whaley. Mostly at paddle bars on Dusky Bay, sometimes at other taverns, back rooms, and wherever a microphone and a cold beer could coexist. Recorded primarily at paddle bars in Dusky Ohio, where the drinks are cold, the stories are warmer, and the Wi-Fi is surprisingly reliable. Music, editing, and general figured out is done in-house. Mistakes are ours, opinions are ours, hangovers vary. Questions, feedback, bar stories or mild complaints? Mild complaints.com.