Hanging Out at the Blue Note

The bartender’s name at Stan’s Blue Note is not Stan. His name is R.B. The name of the owner of Stan’s Blue Note is not Stan. It’s R.B. R.B. has been the owner and bartender of Stan’s Blue Note for some five years.

So who is Stan and why is his name on the sign out front?

“Stan owned the place before me,” says R.B. “And I sure ain’t gonna spend no 600 bucks on a new sign.” He shakes his head, obviously still incredulous that it could cost $600 to replace that plain little plastic sign. “Besides, it says Stan’s in the phone book.”

Stan’s Blue Note does not have an image problem. Stan’s Blue Note does not have an image. It is uncontrived and unpretentious. And unchic. It can probably be called The Most Unchic Bar In Dallas. A wonderful rhinestone in a city of puka shells.

The first time I walked into the Blue Note, I noticed that nobody noticed me. Nobody noticed the ridiculously scroungy new beard on my face and nobody noticed the ridiculously white new shoelaces on my tennis shoes. Good. I went to a stool near the end of the bar.

“Coors,” I said automatically.

R.B. (I thought sure he was Stan – he even looks like a Stan) set the can in front of me and I knew at once I had not made a cool, fit-right-in-at-the-bar move. Everybody, everybody else at the bar was drinking their beer out of jars. Drinking beer from pint jars is a custom that had not, up to that time, been a part of my drinking heritage. So I was rightfully (and I think not perversely) moved by their striking resemblance, especially in their nearly empty state, to the specimen jars in a doctor’s lavatory. A revolting image, perhaps, but it struck me instead as elemental and earthy. Those pint jars first signalled to me the essence of the Blue Note.

I settled in at the bar. Nobody noticed my ridiculously canned beer.

“I hope Eloise makes it up here,” began the first Blue Note barstool conversation I overheard that afternoon.

“The hurricane?”

“Yep.”

“What the hell for?”

“I need a new roof.”

“What?”

“You remember when Carla come through here, when was it, back in ’63?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I needed me a new roof then so I told the insurance company Carla did it and I got a whole new roof and it only cost me 70 bucks.”

“Well, Eloise ain’t gonna make it this far up.”

“Well, hell, if she comes anywhere close I’m goin’ up on my roof with a crowbar, rip up a few shingles, and tell the insurance man that damn hurricane got me again.”

The Blue Note is essentially a blue collar bar and coming out ahead is a common theme in conversation. Others are men, women, and lovin’. Roy is an old timer with a twinkle in his eye, a widower with housecleaning problems. Frank looks young and strong in his white T-shirt and tattoo.

“I finally got me a woman cleanin’ my house now,” says Roy.

“How come?” asks Frank.

“Well, you know how a man cleans house.”

“Yeah. Not worth a damn. That’s how.”

“Yeah. That’s how come I got me a woman to do it.”

“How old is she?”

“Oh, I reckon she’s about 45.”

“You sleep with her?”

“Naaaaw.”

“You don’t? Well why not?”

“Shoot. I’m gettin’ old. I’m 76 you know.”

“Well hell, Roy, if you’re 76 and she’s 45, that’s just right.”

This bartalk had obscured the background accompaniment of the jukebox when my ears suddenly grabbed at the last two lines of a song:



“Here I am in Dallas,

Where in the hell are you?”



End of song. Click. Stop. If I had heard right, I had to hear it again.

The Blue Note jukebox is a goldmine of C&W classics. All the great ones – Hank Snow, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Bob Wills. The jukebox plays just about all the time, especially when Bobbi is behind the bar. (Bobbi is one of the two other bartenders who work when R.B. doesn’t. The other is Toby, who looks more like an old Mississippi steamboat captain than a Dallas bartender.) If the customers stop priming the jukebox while Bobbi is working she’ll take up a collection, getting every customer to chip in a quarter to match the quarter from the bar. On a good night, that keeps it going for at least an hour.

In the middle of the third column I found it: “Here I Am In Dallas” by Faylon Young. I punched it. One-Two-Six.

“Here I am in Dallas,

Where in the hell are you?

I came here to meet you,

Lake I said I’d do.

Have cowboy hats and pick-up trucks

Made a fool of you?

Here I am in Dallas,

Woman where are you?

Here I am in Dallas,

Where in the hell are you?”*



How could I have lived in Dallas all these years and never heard that song? I was amazed. And I was falling in love at first sight. With a bar. (Faylon’s flip side was “Too Much of Not Enough of You.”)



The Blue Note has no motif. It takes a while to get used to walls which have no intended impact, create no scenes, offer no consistent message, and conjure up no fond nostalgic memories. The few random items hanging about include three Dallas Cowboy schedule/scoreboards (two for this year, one for last year), one faded yellow Easter bonnet, a sign on the door to the bathrooms that reads “Used Beer Department,” a “tapestry” of the first moon landing, a poster of a chimpanzee with the words “Booze is the only answer,” and, hanging from the ceiling, a very healthy stalk of cotton bolls. The one significant wall adornment is a sign behind the bar which reads “Happy Hour. Pint Jars 45￠. 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.” The resultant artistic statement made by this wondrous smattering is something like “You can stop wasting your time looking at the decor now. This is a bar not a museum. Talk. Drink.”

The Blue Note is one of the last of an endangered species: the neighborhood bar. Neighborhoods, real neighborhoods, are themselves a vanishing breed, and the Blue Note is a fixture in one of the last – and strangest – Dallas neighborhoods: lower Greenville Avenue. Extending from Ross Avenue at its southern end to Mockingbird Lane as its northern boundary, the commercial profile of this two mile stretch is as diverse as any in the city. In one section stand several establishments owned and operated by Greeks. A block away the Mexican-Arfnerican influence is apparent in the Spanish language films of the Arcadia Theater and a Spanish book store. In another block are two of Dallas’ best Italian restaurants. There’s a fix-it shop next to a head shop. There’s an old-time open air produce stand and a new-hip health food store. Near one end of the strip works a young pottery maker; near the other end, at the Melody Inn, a group of old codgers play dominoes.

While the Blue Note does not reflect all of the neighborhood’s facets, it is most definitely a neighborhood bar. Most of the clientele are regulars. Most everybody knows most everybody else and most everybody lives nearby. Regulars are greeted by friends when they arrive, and nobody leaves the Blue Note without a “Thank you, hurry back” from R.B. or Bobbi or Toby.

The Blue Note is a gathering spot. Above all, it is friendly. The clientele thrive on each other – the place itself has few of the standard attractions. There are no tiffany lamps, no antique signs, no hanging baskets. There are no nachos, no half-pound burgers. No Hashing dance floors, no progressive country bands. There are no foosball tables, no electronic ping-pong games.

There is a shuffleboard table. I was looking it over, curious because I had never seen a shuffleboard table, and wondering whether it worked – it looked strangely dormant.

“Wanna play?”

I turned to find myself in the shadow of a looming hulk of a man. “I, uh, yeah, uh. . .” stammering hesitantly in his awesome presence as if he’d asked me to arm wrestle. “I’ll, uh, try . . . but I’ve never played before.”

“Best time to learn.” He picked up a rag that was hanging from the table. “Lemme clean her up first.” He rubbed over the long narrow slab of highly polished wood. From the top of the Scoreboard hanging over the center of the table he grabbed a can and began sprinkling a sawdust-like powder over the length of the table. A quarter in the slot brought the Scoreboard to life.

“My name’s Stretch,” he said, “and over there’s my wife, Doris.” He extended a massive hand.

“Nice to know you, Stretch. How’s it going tonight?”

“Goin’ great. I got eight hours of overtime in the last two days.”

Stretch picked up one of the steel pucks and set it on the table. These discs are about the size of flat doughnuts, but in Stretch’s fingers they looked like nickels. With a touch that seemed impossibly soft for such a giant, he sent the puck gliding towards the other end of the table where it came to rest about six inches from the edge.

My turn. I mimicked Stretch’s stance and gave the puck a shove. It went flying off the end of the table, caromed off the padding, and dropped into the gutter.

“A little too much,” coached Stretch. He slid another one to rest just in front of the first one. “See there. I put the blanket on it. That’s defense.”

More gently this time, I let my second puck go. It died pathetically, barely crossing the line at the middle of the table.

“Not enough,” said Stretch helpfully. He floated another beauty. I sent my third one off into the side gutter. “You gotta keep your little finger on the edge of the table for control,” he instructed. “Like this.” He sent another into scoring position. “You got the hammer now,” he said, referring to my last puck. “Better knock me outta there.” With little finger on the edge, I let it fly and somehow bumped two of his off the table.

“There you go.” He beamed down proudly at his protege. We played for hours.

The shuffleboard table is a refreshing throwback to the era of the bar as bargain – a place to consume time without consuming cash. For a quarter, you’re in for 15 points worth of shuffleboard. For two players who can lay good blankets and throw big hammers, a standard 21 point game can last well over half an hour. Doubles are even better. When Doris and an old shuffle-shark named True joined us for some team competition, I knew I had stumbled upon the world’s finest barroom game.

“Yeah, it’s a great little game, said Stretch. “Me and Doris love comin’ over here and playin’. I used to be a pool player, but I can’t anymore.” He lifted up his shirttail, displaying a wicked scar on his side. “Took a pool cue in the ribs. Can’t stretch my arm out anymore like I need to for pool. Ol’ Stretch can’t stretch,” he chuckled.

He couldn’t have suffered his injury on the Blue Note pool table which is always a friendly battleground, the warfare purely verbal. At the moment a sagging white haired gentleman who looked like an aged Truman Capote in a fishing cap was chalking up against a tall young blonde girl who looked oddly out of place but acted as if she’d been born there. “Play for a beer?” she challenged.

“Yeah, if you’re fool enough, sweetheart,” he warned. “Cause I’m gonna beat you like a red-headed stepchild.”

She won the beer. I lost a bundle of quarters. By the time I looked up from the shuffleboard table it was almost midnight and the Blue Note was almost empty. Stretch and most of the other regulars had headed for blue-collar beds (“Gotta be up at 4:30 tomorrow morning,” said Stretch). So I headed for the door.

“Thank you,” said R.B. “Hurry back now.”