Tug’s Bar and Grille

Tug’s “Bar and Grille.”  One of the signs we just drive by every once in a while, and I think about it.  I would never go in, and certainly would never be a regular.  Why, I don’t really know— it has that ARC or Salvation Army feel to it.  Those places—you walk in and they have the brassy, unnatural lights and the beaten brown or orange carpet, the kind that I think used to be shaggy but has seen so much that now it’s compacted, kind of sticky, hard.  I mean, I can just imagine inside this “Bar and Grille”:  the faded orange Formica countertops that only belong in old bowling alleys.  Then I’m sure there’s the “taco salad” with questionable meat, a stale shell, and browning iceberg lettuce.  The nachos, one of the more popular orders, have cheese the color of the countertops.  If you let it sit for a minute, the cheese will start to harden and change texture…  warp.  It comes from one of those warm metal containers with a dispenser and a picture of nachos and jalapenos on it.

 

I feel bad for people who go to places like that, for those that have to, for those who like it.  Maybe I’m a bitch.  But there it is.