Afternoon, anytime, Junior's Tavern has an endearing sameness, a syrup-colored corridor where artists, journalists and judges imbibe with factory workers, taxi drivers and the downtrodden.
Nestled near the heart of downtown Salt Lake City since 1975, Junior's always seemed like it belonged in Chicago. Or Milwaukee. Or Boston.
Bars like Junior's are a dying breed, done in by gentrification as corporate chains, clubs and hotel lounges lay waste to the working-class bars once considered a key measurement of a city's character. In Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley has floated a new ordinance forcing neighborhood bar owners to prove they're not a nuisance if 51 percent of voters living within 500 feet complain. In Utah, murky liquor laws and beer-only licenses make it tough for taverns to compete with the upscale pubs and clubs that serve wine and cater to a hipper crowd. Despite their availability, 11 fewer tavern licenses have been issued by the state this year.
Junior's is dying, too. The jail and courts that once made the bar a magnet for lawyers - and some of their clients - were replaced a few years back by a fancy new library. Now the restaurant next door wants to expand. And so, sometime in late December or early next year, owner Greg Arata will pack up his beer can collection and as much of the cozy camaraderie as he can muster, and move.
Blasphemous as the regulars find it, Junior's must change to survive. In the interim they will drink and smoke and curse. A lot.
A bluesy beginning: No bigger than an old barber shop, the former confectionery is brimming with character. Below the bar's surface is a series of wood cubbyholes. Some say they were fashioned to hold school books when kids saddled up for a soda more than half a century ago. But by the 1970s and '80s they were stuffed with bottles of whiskey before brown-bagging in Utah was banned.
Barbara Betthauser, a New York transplant who has helped tend the bar since 1986, sighs at the memory.
"They'd sit there with a fifth of whatever and have at it," she says. "That was definitely the Wild West."
Yet the bar itself has always been somewhat refined.
Once stacked in a collector's garage, reams of old sheet music have long adorned the surface. Intricate tiles line the exterior, while antique mirrors rest behind the cigarettes and packets of aspirin. Flexible tabs are filed with familiar first names, few of whom can recall a fight ever breaking out.
"It has managed to keep a level above being a total dive bar," says Michael Wise before breaking into a laugh. "One level above."
Called the Oak Den Tavern before 1975, the new owners named the bar after Chicago musician Junior Wells.
Arata says they wanted a bluesy sounding name.
It had more than that until the early 1980s, as the den-sized business became a mainstay for live jazz. Local musicians did interviews from the bar on jazz-friendly KUER, while a bassoon player sat in between gigs with the Utah Symphony.
"You'd have to elbow your way into the bar to get a drink," recalls Kurt Schulder, a Massachusetts music school alum who now drives a cab. He played guitar in the 1970s on the bar's makeshift stage. "It really took off for a while. That's what made Junior's what it is."
During the 2002 Winter Olympics, Junior's was the "unofficial" home of the Irish Bobsled Team. It may have marked the only gimmick over the tavern's three-decade run.
But bartenders still build a good Guinness, even if they lack the Irish.
Yet, for most regulars, the sentimental draw has little to do with tunes or themes.
"It's just become the second living room," Theron Read, a youthful 40-year-old who frequents the bar on foot, says between slurps of PBR. "I consider this place the last piece of charm in the city."
Of vice and men: Michael Parkin remembers riding his bicycle by the corner as a boy in the early 1950s. Portly, with a thinning white beard and creased face, Parkin resembles a Santa Claus who has seen too much. He explains, earnestly, that the downtown neighborhood he grew up in and loved has grown depressed.
"This is one of the few exceptions."
Now a Vietnam veteran in his '60s he returns for the cold Budweiser and colorful company.
Junior's, located on the corner of 200 East and 500 South, provides sanctuary for judges and lawyers looking to sneak a lunchtime smoke. Politicians have plied their trade over pints, a prominent local filmmaker has hatched ideas here and a handful of legislators have sat to discuss strategy.
A former Utah Jazz executive purchased plenty of rounds, while, according to bar lore, a former Jazz player was restricted by contract from coming.
Read jokes that snagging one of the apartments above the bar is as difficult as getting rent control in New York.
"On any night I come," he says, "I can talk to a taxi driver, a philosopher, an activist or some blue-collar schmo that's a really nice guy."
"Or, I might meet a girl," he says with a quick chuckle.
Bartenders joke that Junior's is a gay bar because of the lopsided number of men.
Even so, more than one marriage began with a toast here, and lately more young women have been willingly sucked into the scene.
"I meet lots of new people and there's always good conversation," says Ali Knutson, while cheering Tour de France cyclists over glasses of Cutthroat Ale.
The bar is certainly divided, though it has nothing to do with the gender gap: On the north end, aging radicals bemoan the New Urbanism while contemplating social justice in Zion. On the less political south end, an after-work crowd shares pitchers, shoots stick on the bar's lone pool table and keeps an eye on the single TV screen.
"It's the last watering hole for progressives in Salt Lake," says Winston Weeks, a chain-smoking ex-hippie who now does Web design. First arriving in 1985 following a heartbreak, he has since camped along the bar's north end with fellow thinkers and drinkers known as the "Citizen Education Project."
"There are bars in San Francisco and New York that are like this - full of old '60s intellectuals. I come because I like some of the minds here."
Rob Jensen is one of the ringleaders. From his signature stool before a steady stream of Miller High Life, Jensen has his own assessment of why Junior's stands apart from other bars in Salt Lake City.
"You don't find uptight, effete creeps because they can't handle it here," Jensen says. "It's one of the last smoky dives left. The rest of them are filled with reputable customers."
Last call: And yet, Junior's has always enjoyed the support of its neighbors.
"There are three institutions in this neighborhood," library director Nancy Tessman told the city planning commission recently. "The library, the City-County Building and Junior's."
But downtown is gentrifying, and that, laments bartender Alan Chapman, makes the property less viable for a small business.
Especially one with a menu of suds and saucy conversation. That's why Arata, while sad to give up his familiar spot on 500 South, is ready to to scrap his beer-only license. He wants to serve wine, which in turn will help draw women.
"It's not just about money," he says. "I want to expand my clientele."
Arata plans to pack the bar counter and his impressive beer can collection, mounted on the bar's opposite wall, under glass. That means dusting off the Sterling, Schlitz and Fischer as well as the Meister Brau and white cans simply labeled "Beer."
"I'm going to try to incorporate it in," he says. "People like the things that are predictable. It's a nice feel. It's comfortable."
If customer loyalty is any barometer, a Junior's in jeopardy is hard to fathom.
Perched at the bar recently, a jovial gent in a straw hat turned suddenly sour when told about the impending move. Suddenly, his fist jolted the timeworn wood surface.
"This place is perfect!" he yells, peering down at the sheet music to ponder his options.
"Well," he reasons, "I'll follow the business."
Cary Adamson was here opening night in 1975 and scores of nights since. His tenure helps when coercing the staff to dust off the crates of vinyl.
When this closes you're not going to find a bar like this," he says, pulling from a cigarette while beaming behind his wire-rimmed glasses. "This is good history."
djensen@sltrib.com
