Last Saturday at six o’clock was the final Last Call at the National Liquor Bar. Located on Milwaukee’s south side near 27th Street, it closed down after 66 years to make way for a Walgreens parking lot. This coming Saturday, the store’s insides and its huge vintage neon sign will be auctioned off.

People could be seen spilling out from the establishment onto the street from several blocks away. A disheveled man stood next to the door, singing and playing his guitar, and a hotdog vendor doled out dogs and Italian sausages to those who needed something to soak up the liquor.

Inside, people were packed in on all four sides of the huge bar, which also works as an actual liquor store. They even sold meat and offered breakfast. People were shouting. People were raucous. My two female friends and I were greeted by a twenty something man with a chin piercing whose face was grimy with sweat. He requested to see our IDs. We acquiesced, not seeing a reason not to, but then he admitted he was just fooling with us. He laughed uproariously at his own joke and hollered that he should’ve asked for a cover charge. We shot him various unimpressed looks and moved on.

The majority of those drinking at the bar were south side, working class Milwaukeeians, many of them aged sixty or older. They grasped tightly their plastic cups of Busch beer. All attendees stood in close proximity to one another, buttocks brushed up against backs. A group of men who passed myself and my friends remarked that there were so many “strangers” in the bar but at least “there were some cute girls.”




When I walked in, an older, squat gentleman wearing a baseball cap sitting at one of the few tables beside me began conversing with me about my tattoos. He wondered if there was an additional tattoo hidden under my shirt, on my cleavage. He showed me the panther tattoo he’d gotten for seven dollars in 1945, on State Street, right downtown. A little while later, an even older, tinier gentleman in a very bright green print shirt ambled over to me. He looked sad, his eyes watery, but that could‘ve just been a reaction to the smoke wafting around the joint. He mentioned that this was his place to drink. Then he commented he was too broke to buy last another beer. I brightly exclaimed that he should certainly be able to find someone he knew to buy him a beer, feeling certain that someone would spare this character fifty cents on such a day. He ambled off, saying such people would know him if they saw him, instead of the other way around, that he would know who would buy him a round if he saw them.

One man who wore his Lee jeans hitched up too high was also memorable due to his annoying manner. He kept exclaiming that he’d hand over fiver hundred dollars to whichever one of us ladies could manage to convince his pastor friend to get tattooed. Ah ha ha! Pastor friend! Tattoo!! Ar har har. While he was bellowing in our ears, another guy positioned on the other side of us began yelling out the name Miriam. Then he kissed my friend.

The customer who was the most intriguing was none of these men. She was a circa 70-year-old little lady sitting at the bar with the huge beehive hairdo. She had such toned skinny tan arms for an old lady. Her glasses were those 1970s oversized deals that covered half of her cheeks. Her attire was a splendid combination of short, loose, light blue jean shorts, a fetching black strapless top--but not a tube top--,and a sleeveless black leather vest. She was talking away, enjoying herself, sad too at the end, near the last call. She emulated sassy badassness, and she displayed it when one of my friends began chatting with her about their similar bracelets. “Mine are cooler,” the lady told my friend with a laugh.

We left after all the beer was gone, sucked out of the tappers, not a drop left (The bar had knocked prices to what they were in 1982, so beer cost $.50.) If you wanted a shot, you took what was left. Our group received Southern Comfort and Grand Marnier. Before we saw anyone begin spilling salty, sweaty tears into their cracked and crinkled cups, we left. Well, we sat outside until the owner came out and yelled at everyone to clean up their beer cans and vacate the premises. Then the police showed up.