11/06/2023
From the dispatch of Mike Zapf
Too weird to live, too rare...
In the months leading up to the opening of the improbable community center that would occupy 2709 Cherokee, Rob and I (as we often found ourselves) were roommates. Although I had no intention at the time of being anything more than a patron, he would often ask my opinions about menu possibilities, operational aspects and the name. He'd been going back and forth between The Spider Lounge and The B- Side. I wholeheartedly endorsed the name B-Side.
The night of the soft opening I was in the midst of vague plans of leaving St. Louis with the woman I was dating at the time. That afternoon I offered to help with the opening in any capacity that may be required, but Rob declined and told me to just show up for a burger and to hang out. He left the house that evening with $17 in change and the nervous energy of preparing to cook a few burgers for a few close friends. I left the house several hours later unaware that that evening and that place would inexorably alter the course of my life.
Upon arriving that night at what was now officially called B-Side, I found Rob deep in the weeds. The place was packed. Orders were piled up, change was owed, chaos was ensuing and a sublimely good time was being had by all. My high volume food truck experience immediately kicked into gear like a sleeper agent. I bought a bank of change from a loosely affiliated establishment to bring back to the anti-establishment. I hopped behind the bar to assist in order taking and expediting and felt a tranquility I'd been missing for a while. The food service lasted less than 2 hours before sellout, but the pre-liquor license BYOB party amongst the bare walls and completely unnecessary and unwanted piano carried on long past legal bar closing time. By the next morning, I'd broken up with the woman I was going to move with and decided to ask Rob about working there on weekends. When I brought this up to Rob he said "Are you fu***ng serious?" then crushed me into a bear hug and told me I could write my own schedule. Unsure, but with an inkling, I told him "Who knows? Maybe I'll meet the love of my life there." Ultimately I ended up stealing the Friday and Saturday night shifts that rightfully should have been my future wife's. The next day I went to the gentrification bar that Jess worked at to apologize. Her response to my sniping the best shifts from her after months of little to no involvement with the launch was "Game recognize game." Little did I know at the time how true that would end up being.
From the onset the governance was anarcho-democracy. A landlocked pirate ship. The subsequent years would see the walls start to fill, the menu evolve, the soundtrack take shape and a haven for outcasts and misfits form. In its prime B-Side would produce what I would think at the time was the greatest night of my life until the next night rolled around and a new champion in the pantheon of greatest nights would be crowned.
We thought no one would show up to the first Xmas party because St. Louis was covered in a thick sheet of ice. The place ended up packed. We smashed and burned a dozen office phones. Rob unintentionally showed everyone his balls a dozen times and sent Jenna (before she worked there) flying horizontally across the room while dominating the mosh pit in his secretary outfit. The early parties will live on in lore. The Spring Fling, the Wig Party, the dance battles that I'm forever convinced Jenna won by swaying blissfully on the periphery like a hippie, unaware but there, on the shores of a sea of crunk.
On a personal level, B-Side hosted the celebrations for my life's greatest moments. Jess carried Ozzie while bartending for 8 months. An indelible rhythm imprinted onto him in utero by the rowdiest round robin of DJ's that graced and embraced such a humble venue. The Blues won their only Stanley Cup on a sh*tty TV there. Our baby shower, wedding reception and going away party couldn't have taken place anywhere else. The flip side of that record found a home as well in the same empathetic confines. The tears of heartbreaking loss were given solace in the shotgun vacuum of unconditional love. Triumph and tragedy received an equally comforting embrace by a space that carried as many flaws as any of us.
B-Side was too weird to live and too rare... The literal blood, sweat and tears of myself and my chosen family is embedded in the floor in a way no amount of mopping, buffing or whitewashing will ever be able to dislodge. It was a home more welcoming than many of our homes. A respite for and from restlessness. A barbed wired southside alley zen garden where an elusive moment of enlightenment could linger long enough to be recognized and not taken for granted. Alas, even mirrors that reflect infinity shatter.
A gaping hole will be left in the community that was created and fostered by B-Side. Although my melancholy, for the closing and not being present in the hallowed walls for the funeral, is palpable. I know that B-Side is and always will be more than a bar. More than something that can be snuffed out by an impersonal text from the damoclean sword of the powers that be. It's an ethos and a way of life created by and for a patchwork family bound by the shared experience of a social experiment that succeeded grandly. I feel blessed to have created bonds that will live on in perpetuity. The names of all beloved coworkers, Dj's, bands, regulars and friends that are here and those that are gone but never forgotten are too numerous to shout out.
I'll rely on the phrasing of masters to express my sentiments. "Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; Love leaves a memory no one can steal." In the end B-side was too weird to live and too rare... too beautifully, acceptingly, sadly, lovingly rare. Forever and always. Too fu***ng rare.
