At Old City Hall: A katsu sando (?), imported cherries and more wines than beers. (Nope, this isn't a dive bar)

Old City Hall: It really was

This is our 50th bar report. We're not done yet!

The hairy guy’s report:

Merriam-Webster, our favorite dictionary, defines a dive as “a shabby and disreputable establishment (such as a bar or nightclub).” It also lists “divekeeper,” a sadly underused term for “a keeper of a dive.”

But some places consider it hip to be considered a dive. One bar that opened in an up north town not long back described itself as “an upscale dive bar” – an unwelcome oxymoron if ever there was one. If you’re going for shabby and disreputable, you at least expect cheap drinks. That place didn’t stay in business long.

Old City Hall is charming, polished and professional

Doc’s report:

A few observations on the importance of old halls:

• When tourists returning home highlight their trips, it’s surprising how often, in my experience, their touchstones are halls: Preservation Hall in the French Quarter, Carnegie Hall, Faneuil Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, and the like.
• My own college experience was punctuated by the building of Wickes Hall at SVSU in 1969 and my first class in Angell Hall at U of M in 1971.
• The Vikings’ version of heaven is Valhalla, literally “the hall of the slain” warriors.
• I don’t have a bucket list; but, if I did, #1 would be a certain hall in Cooperstown, N.Y., my version of heaven.
• And I’ve been to my share of halls of both the pool and the dance varieties.