Tiny’s Tavern

Oregon Tavern Age: Tiny’s Tavern and the Legend of Evelyn Part 2

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The bartender narrated and I listened: Evelyn Bucher owned and operated Tiny’s Tavern from 1956 to 2010, when she passed away. Fifty-four years behind the bar in OTA country, doubtless a record. Beer and wine only then. Cigarettes and stogies. Fried chicken and sack lunches to go. She might have even served an underage Steve Prefontaine, the legendary wild man distance runner who grew up in the area and trained in the dunes! Years ago, she even put in a laundromat inside the joint! She served two generations of loggers and fishermen and back in the day it was probably like Sometimes a Great Notion every morning, noon and night, except for the fact that Evelyn didn’t allow cussing in the tavern and 86’d anyone who did.

I looked at Evelyn’s portrait again. They never have portraits like these in brew pubs and that’s pretty much the reason I stopped going to brew pubs. Who wants to talk about beer when you can talk about gizzards?

The bartender told me that Evelyn was beloved in the community, belonged to multiple service organizations, sponsored bowling, baseball, softball and pool teams, once donated 69 handmade quilts to veterans, and was a proud and active member of her church. When she died, practically all of North Bend turned out and they held a viewing of her in a mortuary, a celebration of her life in a church, and celebration of her other life in Tiny’s. Preacher drinks beer with logger. It don’t get no more OTA than that.

I asked about the carpet on the walls and why Evelyn hadn’t ripped it out once smoking was banned. The regulars wouldn’t hear of it, the bartender said, and besides, Evelyn’s husband or son owned a carpet cleaning business and they regularly came in and shampooed the walls. I asked and asked and the bartender kept riffing Evelyn stories.

The more the bartender shared about Evelyn, including showing me the commemorative bar stool with her name embroidered in the vinyl and the ladder she used to clean the top of the grill, the more I marveled. Can a woman like Evelyn with a name like Evelyn still exist on the Oregon Coast? I mean, was she the last Evelyn in reality and metaphor?

A half hour vanished. The bartender excused herself and headed toward the back. I got up to find the restroom and headed toward the back. A few seconds later, to my left, I noticed a rectangular enclosed space fronted by large windows. I went inside. It was the laundromat, a tiny laundromat, and I was utterly shocked because I thought it had closed down decades ago.

No one was inside the laundromat. I looked around: there were industrial washers and dryers and a half dozen old pool league trophies decorating the space, big trophies made of marble and metal that could kill a man in a bar fight. One trophy even had a mini pool table with real green felt! I desperately wanted one of these trophies for my home. I also wanted to do my laundry and drink beer inside Tiny’s laundromat and imagine what had gone on while the beer flowed and clothes were washed and dried.

A few minutes later I was back sitting at the bar, finishing the rest of my session. The bartender was programming the jukebox. The Ninja woman was winning and making Ninja-like noises and gestures. The gizzards were waiting for a gullet. I took a final look at Evelyn. Her glowing image was the combined OTA portrait of Mona Lisa, the Virgin Mary and the Hamm’s bear.

As I got up to leave, an OTA man and woman entered the tavern each carrying a hamper of dirty clothes. They were smiling.

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Oregon Tavern Age: Tiny’s Tavern and the Legend of Evelyn Part 1

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A woman leaned against the facade of Tiny’s Tavern in North Bend.

She wore her blonde hair in a ponytail. She also wore black cat-eye gasses, pink pajama bottoms, a gray hoodie and UGG boots. A cigarette dangled from her lips. A nose ring sparkled in the sunlight. There were hushed OTA whispers in the lines of her face.

“Are you my bartender?” I said.

“I’m your bartender,” she said.

She snuffed out the cigarette with her fingers, shoved it into a pajama pocket, and we went into the tavern together. It was 11:45 on a weekday morning and I’d never had a bartender wearing pajama bottoms serve me a drink before.

Steve Miller’s “Jungle Love” played on the digital jukebox. I was the only customer. I sat down at the bar and ordered a local session beer. I listened to Steve sing: Everything’s better when wet.

The session materialized in record time. Must have been the pajamas.

I looked around Tiny’s. It was tiny and had carpeted walls, something I’d never seen before.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Point Blank” came on. I hadn’t heard it in 25 years and never before in a bar.

I was gonna be your Romeo you were gonna be my Juliet
These days you don’t wait on Romeo’s you wait on that welfare check
and on all the pretty things that you can’t ever have and on all the promises
That always end up point blank, shot between the eyes

The bartender chose this semi-obscure song, perhaps the bleakest in Bruce’s catalog? I started liking her. I started thinking of a short story about her in the “Point Blank” tradition and wondered what Bruce would have made lyrically from a pink pajama-wearing bartender before noon who had walked to work in a dead mill town because no one would give her a ride.

I looked to my right, to the marquee menu over the deep fryer and grill. It had movable type and was surely the last movable type menu in America.

A menu item caught my eye: gizzards, $3.

I asked the bartender if anyone ever ordered the gizzards.

“One woman. Yes. I’ve got a regular who calls in for three takeout orders,” she said.

Takeout Gizzards—great rock band name.

“How old is she?” I was expecting someone elderly, OTA to the stone greasy core.

“In her 20s.”

“What’s she drink?”

“Coronas. She slams a couple before leaving.”

“Hang Fire” by the Rolling Stones came on.

In the sweet old country where I come from
Nobody ever works
Yeah nothing gets done
We hang fire, we hang fire

Three women entered the joint—all OTA.

“Lunch time!” one of them said. “Shot of whiskey.”

The bartender went to the Jack Daniels Fire.

There is word for the convergence of fire like that. I’ll let a wordsmith figure it out.

“Jesus I’m winded!” she continued. “Three blocks is a long way to walk!” She laughed.

She wore black lycra shorts and a black lycra top. No coat. In November. She weighed well over 250 pounds and was about the happiest person I’d seen in years. A lot happier than me.

The bartender handed her the shot of Jack Fire.

“I’m here to defeat the Ninja!” she yelled, referring to video slot machine that featured a Ninja holding a sword. She made Ninja-like sword movements with the shot and then pounded it.

A new bartender appeared and the pajama lady left. I never got her name as she sashayed out the door.

I sipped the session and watched the new bartender punch in juke box selections. A Billy Joel song from the 70s came on that I didn’t recognize.

A framed photograph of an old woman above the back bar intrigued me. You never see this sort of decoration in brew pubs—but they are legion in OTA country. They are landmarks in OTA country.

“Who’s that woman?” I said to the bartender.

“That’s Evelyn.”

The music stopped. The digital goblins were mucking up the works.

And then the bartender launched into Evelyn’s OTA story and I hadn’t even solicited it.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)