Adventures of the Lost Expedition: Part XII: Outer Spaces.

May 6, 1983

Adventures of the Lost Expedition, Part XII: Outer Spaces.

CAPTAIN’S LOG, BAR DATE XII: Was it the onset of spring or was it simply the prospect of venturing into new galaxies in the Outer Suburbs that quickened the pulse of the Lost Expedition as it renewed its quest to have a drink in every licensed establishment on Main Street from downtown Buffalo to the Genesee County line?

          Perhaps it also had something to do with the nature of the designated staging area. The pleasures of drinking, dining and dallying at Brennan’s Bowery Bar in the Clarence Mall at Main and Transit were well known to most of the trekkers and they were eager to repeat the experience.

          Unfortunately, none of them could muster themselves early enough to take advantage of happy hour’s endless hors d’oeuvres and half-priced drinks. By the time they arrived, the goodies were gone and prices stood at their standard levels – 80 cents for a draft Labatts 50 Ale (all the beer is draft here) and $1.80 for mixed drinks. Then again, early arrivals might have had to orbit the place a few times before they could land.

          Even as twilight approached, the crowd stood two to three deep around the bar and 20 and 30 minutes deep on the waiting list for the dining room. The expeditioners milled about, admiring the touches of old New York, the mooseheads on the walls, the advertising messages among the ceiling tiles and the presence of a Pac-Man pinball machine – more pinball than Pac-Man, it turned out, with a surprise bonus of 200,000 points for the final ball.

          Sensory satiation continued right through dinner – meaty chicken wings at $3.10 a single, $4.95 a double; ribs at $6.25 that scored points for tenderness and an immensely adequate fish fry at $3.75 and $4.50, all washed down with pitchers of Labatts 50. Tip and all, the crew escaped for what seemed like an eminently reasonable tribute of $7 apiece.

          En route to the next stop, Charlie Brown’s Restaurant at the Main Street end of the plaza, the party stumbled over a previously uncharted outpost – Syracuse’s Pizza Plant, which served beer. They pledged to return later, when one of the tables might be empty.

          Finding a vacant table was the least of the concerns in the villa section of Charlie Brown’s. Where the senses had worked overtime at Brennan’s, they retreated here from the Florentine excess of the décor. Nor could the crew take advantage of the somewhat larger selection and somewhat lower prices on the menu.

          They contemplated the bar list instead. Bottled beer was 95 cents. Cocktails ran $1.25 and $1.35, with a special double at $1.75. One of the newer recruits, the Neon Knight, took a sip of his Black Russian and grimaced darkly. It had been laced with generic coffee liqueur instead of Kahlua. They had no Kahlua, the waitress said. He sent it back.

          By the time they emerged, docking was available at Syracuse’s Pizza Plant. The party quickly took exploratory readings. The walls were paneled smartly with slanted wood, set off with a bit of stucco. The beer list was stunningly exotic – St. Pauli Girl, Kirin, Carlsberg Elephant, Carta Blanca and those 25-ounce cans of Foster’s Lager from Australia, not to mention a handful of American and Canadian brands.

          The menu, meanwhile, was pizza, pizza, pizza. Not just your regular pies with options, but all sorts of wild variations on the basic pasta. There were stuffed pizzas and then, shades of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, there were pizza pods – little 90-cent croissants, as it were, filled with extras at 20 cents a condiment. They were exquisite.

          The Captain elected to overshoot the next stop, Stage One at 8200 Main St., and return for a nightcap when the evening’s rock band was in its final set. In contrast to the full parking lot at Stage One, the asphalt around the Red Mill, 8326 Main St., was deserted. A quick scan detected only a few lifeforms in the place. It was 11:30 p.m. and they were cleaning up.

          The expeditioners plunged ahead to a modest plaza storefront called Justine’s at 8595 Main. Instead of a band, there was an FM radio station playing heavy metal, a pool table with a chalkboard waiting list and a shuffleboard-style bowling machine. Hand-lettered signs proclaimed nightly drink specials. Guys outnumbered the women by a ratio of better than five to one and there was a preponderance of tattoos.

          One round of games and the trek transported to a universe that, in terms of elegance, was light years away from Justine’s. In truth, Ashley’s Pub at Samuel’s Grande Manor, 8750 Main, is a fancy bar attached to a fancy restaurant attached to a fancy wedding caterer.

          In the main ballroom, dancers whirled to a band playing “New York, New York” as the Tripi-Quinn nuptuals wound down. Wedding portraits adorned the walls. Beyond the windows was a garden for photo-taking, complete with gazebo. The waiters and waitresses had retired to Ashley’s to await the clean-up.

          Ornate ceiling fans cut lazily through the Tudor atmosphere, a rock station played Echo and the Bunnymen and the serving staff ordered another round of a white concoction which the bartender identified as a Horny Girl Scout.

          “Crème de menthe, crème de cacao, roncoco and a little cream,” he explained. “It tastes like a thin mint.”

          Even after a few of these, one waiter had enough presence of mind to forestall an impulse by one of the crew to sneak a couple pieces of leftover cake. Then he disappeared, returning a few minutes later with two napkin-wrapped slices of the coveted confection.

          Returning to Stage One, the trekkers found berths in the parking lot, littered as usual with empty six-packs consumed by customers before they went inside. It was nearly 2 a.m., but the doorman wanted $2 anyway.

          “The band still has another set to play,” he asserted. After a few moments of negotiation, he compromised and lowered the tariff to $1.

          It wasn’t much of a bargain. The place was half-full of scruffy, blue-jeaned youth not much over the new drinking age. The floor was wet. The air quality was that of an open hearth furnace. Even the video game room hung heavy with smoke. The Captain sipped his mixed drink from a plastic cup, noting that it was the raunchiest version of this potion he’d encountered all the way up Main Street, and came to his first conclusion about the Outer Suburbs. Here there’s no boundary between the high life and the low life. They simply co-exist.