Years ago, when I was driving from Miami to Boulder with my girlfriend, our car broke down in the middle of the Louisiana woods. We had arrived in Miami driving a one-year old Honda Accord. We left in a broken down VW “Vanagon,” an ill-advised trade-in that constituted some kind of halfhearted rebellion against my girlfriend’s privileged upbringing. We’d already spent the last two days in New Orleans waiting for parts and now, in the middle of nowhere, the damn thing was breaking down again. Prospects were grim. It was pitch black, raining, and because of highway construction, we found ourselves traveling down a barely maintained backcountry road.
Thankfully, a cluster of lights appeared in the distance. Pulling into “town” we noticed that two of its three establishments were still open – the motel and a bar. The less said about the motel the better -- musty rooms with plastic sheets and nothing but hardcore porn on television. The bar, however, was a different story.
Short on atmosphere, it was long on just about everything else -- cold beer, cheap whiskey, cool bartender and a truly diverse cast of characters. Nothing about the place was particularly remarkable (or clean), but there was a sense of community that is difficult to find outside of strange, small Southern bars.
The reason I bring all this up is because I got the same kind of vibe when I walked into M & M’s bar on Welton Street just off of 26th Ave. in Five Points. An almost literal hole-in-the-wall, M & M’s downstairs section resembles nothing more than a partially finished basement -- dingy white walls with practically nothing hanging on them, exposed light bulbs screwed into the ceiling, Formica countertops, a couple of tables, and barstools that threaten to break if one shifts too far in either direction. It’s not much to look at, but the bartender is nice and knows how to pour a drink (although she doesn’t have milk, so don’t ask for a White Russian). Bottles of Budweiser are $2, ice cold and, best of all, come served with a tiny glass on the side. Now I don’t know what it is about tiny glasses that make beer taste better, but they do. And they’re cute. Unlike the bathroom. Don’t get me started on the bathroom.
The clientele is definitely made up of neighborhood regulars and characters, but there were no angry stares, no uncomfortable silences, no hard feelings -- just a laid-back atmosphere and a jukebox filled with songs by people like Marvin Sease.
Upstairs at M & M’s is a different story – one that I don’t know because I didn’t bother going up there. What with the nice time I was having downstairs I didn’t see the point. Like the bartender said to me, “If you want to walk all the way up those steps to have the exact same stuff we have down here, go right ahead.”
Maybe someday.