Mr. Steve and I are travelin' down 84 and pull off in Ontario, Oregon. After tetherin' Steve, I…read morefind myself walkin' along the vacant sidewalks of dusty, downtown Ontario on a searing and tortured Sunday, 1pm. Carl, I tell you, the soles on my boots was beginnin' to liquefy and I needed shelter, or perhaps vodka.
The Spuds-N-Suds Tavern, while terribly named, is the place (in Ontario) to put a bullet into the afternoon with cheap libation and cheerful chatter from the barstaff. What makes Spuds heaps better than the local competition, however, is that it falls into the always intriguing (in my mind, at least) category of hipster/divebar..minus the hipsters, of course; that tribe congregates in a couple of holes down Boise way.
An inauspicious entrance with an old air conditionin' unit dangling precariously over the front door led into a pleasantly dilapidated cafe which in turn led into the bar. The bar itself was small but tucked into two fairly large rooms that contained the usual collection of huddled locals at video poker games, seemingly hired by Central Casting to man the stools. But the bar itself was comfy, glasses of ice tinkled, a stereo sputtered Dolly Parton, and the lulling smell of cooked onions wafted through the room on a deep fried breeze. A lone, middle aged Indian woman sat at the bar, nursing a can and I could make out the warble of a drunken old galoot yellin' incoherencies in the adjoining cafe. Ahhh..home for the next three hours. I picked a perch, ordered the first of many, and relaxed as the sweat dried on my lower back. I wish you was here, Carl, you'd like it here.
For a time, I sat and enjoyed the banter - folks here are real nice and the conversation was the perfect counterpoint to the vodka buzz that was creepin' up from my belly. Yeah, time to see what they'd come up with in that funky cafe up front. French fries are mandatory here..they didn't disappoint, and the chicken sandwich was strangely good (after five vodka tonics.) A lovely young bartender can give you a bit on Basque culture - she's half. But it's the atmosphere that makes this joint a great distraction on I-84. Carl, if you're like this cowboy, and welcome the wonderful calm that comes from sittin' in a cool and quiet tavern on an early Sunday afternoon, you can do no better (in Ontario) than Spuds N' Suds.