There are plenty of skeezy bars in Wisconsin and perhaps none is more scarier than Shari's Still in Milwaukee. This old broad comes and asks you what you want to drink looking like she is ready to smack you if you give the wrong answer. I gave her the name of two popular craft beers and she looked at me like I was nuts mumbling something like she don't know what I am talking about. You will not find craft beer here as places like Shari's Still exist from the generous subsidies that beer distributor mega-companies gave to small independent bars in this state through the years. Shari is one scary broad and likely has opened up as many times as she popped a beer can in her life.
A Shari and her still existed in another era of cheap beer and beer drinking that has often been displaced in much of America whether with the wine bar or a gastropub and places like Shari's Still will die off with the owner. Villages all over the country with the exception of Wisconsin are trying to liquidate these businesses from their main streets and boulevards as they are a vanguard of old drunks and the trouble they bring to the small town police departments in small town America. A place like Shari's Still have their own sharia laws and rather police themselves instead of dealing with the headaches with the police and getting charged each time the department needs to be called in taking some of their profits in fines. Shari's Still and bars like this occupy the last of turn of the century buildings that only strict regulation and anti-development ordinances can save from the eyes of greedy developers who want to see another Baskin Robbins or CVS marts on every corner. Whether places like Shari's Still can whether the storm and keep serving cheap beer instead of selling prescriptions or Rocky Road ice cream is questionable.
No comments:
Post a Comment