There's Something About Harry's

Of the many hazards of making a living as a professional lush, a persistent one is the inability to decipher your drunken scrawls in your beer-sodden notebook after a night in a dark club. Then there's the hazard that your coworkers who double as Research Assistants will take your notebook while you're off sitting on the lap of your work crush and, being 12 years old, draw penises (or is it peni?) on practically every page. To our chagrin, all of the above happened during one of our first visits to Harry's Country Club back in December, not long after Harry Murphy's new venture in the River Market opened. In our defense, we had just been to our office holiday party and were coming off an open-bar-induced state of euphoria.

So a few months later, we decided to try again and gathered several departmental coworkers for a happy hour, which sounded fetching -- from 3 to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, $3 will get you a burger (or a quesadilla, lil' smokies or a bologna finger sandwich) and a yard beer (Schlitz, Falstaff, Hamm's, PBR or Old Style). No, it's not a yardlong glass of beer; it refers to beer so cheap that you can drink it out in your yard.

"Uh, somehow I didn't remember all the stuff on the walls," said Research Assistant Nathan as he entered, squinting as if he were on an archaeological dig and had just entered a tomb full of dazzling treasures. The bar itself was wonderful and saloony; the dark-yellow walls were decked with photos of country-music stars, kitschy beer collectibles and random items, such as a cream-colored, Western-style shirt and pants with gold trim. A mural of a naked woman was over the bar. "Her pasties are gone!" said RA Gina, who had remembered that, around the holidays, the lady had gift bows on her breasts. "What the hell. No shirt, no service -- that's what I have to say to her." Another mural on the back wall depicted a tranquil lake. At first, we thought that perhaps it was something from a Hamm's ad -- it certainly looked like the Land of Sky Blue Waters (waa-ters), but the lack of a cartoony bear was puzzling. (And where exactly was this mythical land where a panda could dance around to Native American drums?) Later, Harry Murphy III confirmed that it wasn't from any sort of beer ad at all.

We stuck with PBR. RAs Nadia and Gina got Old Style. "PBR from a can -- ah, it tastes like college," Nathan said. "It has the blue-collar cred that all the hipsters want," noted RA Michael V. We were half expecting hipsters to show for the happy hour, but there were none; the crowd seemed to be older, and golf shirts were in abundance, which is great if you're looking for a sugar daddy. But we weren't, so after a few more drinks, we aborted the mission and came back on a Friday night.

Things were decidedly different later at night. The place steadily filled up with tattooed scenesters and Golf Shirts. We spotted a Misery Boy and nerdily got excited when "Here Comes Nothing" coincidentally came on the jukebox (which contains a fine mix of tunes, from Patsy Cline to Frank Sinatra and Al Green). The bar felt like a combination of two of our favorite watering holes: Harry's in Westport, for the kinda upscale atmosphere, and Dave's Stagecoach, for the congeniality of the patrons. "It's two different crowds," commented Rex's sound guy, waving a hand around as he told us that the suit on the wall was his. It had gotten too small, so it was on loan to the bar.

As we waited for other members of our party to show, we went out on the patio, which totally got us excited for Outdoor Drinking Season. Hemmed in between two brick buildings, the patio had a covered stage at one end (a turquoise star hung from the top, prompting Nathan to comment that it resembled an abandoned Nativity scene) as well as wooden benches and drink-holding ledges. Though the view was slightly marred by the brightly lighted ATM drive-through, which Nadia likened to a landing pad, it was still a nice vista of downtown, and we were just happy that more places were opening up in the River Market to afford this sort of perspective.

According to Harry III, the patio is now open, so check your local listings -- i.e., us -- for what bands will be performing. He also plans to build a 25-foot-long bar outside and will have a grill for "skewered stuff" -- brats, hot dogs and such. Which, really, are the only phallic objects we want to see in bars, notebook scribblings notwithstanding.