Revelation of the Electric Squirrels!

A friend of mine from Jersey came to visit this past weekend. It was a surprise birthday trip from his girlfriend. Pretty funny when you think of it because visiting Buffalo at the end of March is not necessarily the standard for weekend getaways. But we had a good time none the less.

Friday night we met downtown Buffalo after he and his girlfriend spent the previous day in Niagra Falls. We coordinated a meeting at the Anchor Bar on main street in Buffalo.

For those of you not in the know, the Anchor Bar claims to be the "Home of the Original Buffalo Chicken Wings."

This venture marked the third time I have gone to the Anchor Bar, the previous two times were also when friends came in to town to visit. But the Anchor Bar because of it's history has become a sort of tourist destination and thus is the place to bring those out of towners who love Buffalo Wings. The establishment has even been featured on Food Network by Bobby Flay in both his Food Nation show and Throwdown.



Personally I think there are many other places in the area that serve better wings (namely the Glenwood Grill) than the Anchor Bar, but the novelty of the place is what makes it unique.

So we hungout there, meeting up with other friends, watched the Sabres blow another game and then sat down for a large portion of chicken wings. Apparently we came at the right time because they had live music this particular night. It was some Jazz ensemble, complete with a lounge singer. They were pretty good, and helped put me in the mood to consume a million chicken wings.

Later that night we all went back to my small bar, the Grill to check out the music and get a night cap or two. We had John Diebel and Russ Guilano (I don't think that is the correct spelling of his name.) John is a bartender/promoter/performer for us. He works a couple nights at Riley's, he also hosts the open mic night on tuesdays as well as another open mic night at the Barbill on Wednesday. Then occasionally he'll play with his band or an accomplish on the weekends.

Russ is in a pretty popular band from the area called Love Puddle. They have played for us a couple times, but Russ has also played with John as a duo a few times. I love when they come to the Grill to play because it usually ends up that we stay out partying until 4am with them occasionally playing a song between tequila shots. It is generally always a good time. However this Friday, business was slow so they only played until around 2:30am. Still a good time and a great show though.

Saturday Night, we went to Riley's. Again to check out another band we had playing there, this time though the band was the "Electric Squirrels." Two guys in this band actually work for us as well. If you haven't been able to pick up on it yet, we are slowly turning into a venue and employment haven for local artists. It's nice though, because I find musicians to be very appreciative and friendly people for the most part.

The Squirrels were good as well. They played a lot of classic rock, a lot of the songs were very recognizable. Definitely crowd pleasers.

As I was sitting there, in the Gandy Dancy, listening to music and watching the NCAA tourney, my friend turns to me in a moment of revelation.

He said he was just sitting there looking at all the liqour on the shelf when he came to the realization that someone had to have purchased all of it, and that someone was me. At which point he began to feel guilty for just expecting to get everything comped and started insisting that the bartenders take his money.

That revelation of his symbolizes the common misnomer society has regarding bars. Nothing in a bar is free, someone somewhere is paying for each and everything.

I feel that most people who come in looking for freebies, just assume that bars are magically stocked with alcohol. That each week, it just shows up, free of charge to us the greedy and uncompassionate bar owners of the world. And then all we do is sell this supply to the public, a supply that we assumabley got for free in the first place, so technically we should give it away for free as well.

However that is not actually the case. Each and every bottle of beer, case of liquor, stack of pretzels and/or basket of chicken wings you ever see in a bar was paid for first by the owners. So when you see bar owners sitting at their establishment and not paying for drinks or food, it's not because they get the stuff for free, it's because they have already paid for it.

Think of it in this light: Picture yourself having a group of friends over on some particular night to hang out. On this night, you do all the prep work in getting your house ready, purchase all the drinks, pay for the catering and then hire servers to both serve the drinks and clean up after your friends. Then when your friends come, instead of offering to help or pay for some of the costs, they just assume that since it's your house they can just come and enjoy themselves for free. If this ever happened, you would probably consider these friends to be moochers.

So from now on when you are at a bar, instead of demanding "hey, it's you're bar, you don't have to pay for it, so buy me a drink", just be knowledgeable and courteous enough to respect the fact that we do actually have to pay for it. And when an owner gives you a drink, show some gratitude instead of just expecting it. And if you really want to make a good impression, buy them a drink back, believe me, they'll really appreciate it.