Tuesday, December 1st 2009
Gerry's Diamond Tap
By 2 Cents
As I walked into this corner bar, at 3:45 on a Tuesday afternoon, all the bar stools--save one--were occupied. As I sheepishly walked over to the lone bar stool at the far left of the bar, I made eye-contact with the bartender, a stern looking woman in her 50’s. I asked her what she had on special, to which she replied "I need to see some ID." After taking my ID all the way over to the other side of the bar, doing something with it which I couldn’t see (did they really have a scanner in here), she comes back with a broad smile. “What can I get ya?” she says with a perfect Wisconsin dialect. “PBR” says I, “It won’t cost more than three bucks will it?”--all I had was four and wanted to at least leave a dollar for a tip. “Ha!” She says, “It’s only a buck seventy-five, and at 4pm it goes down to a dollar!” “You ain’t downtown buddy!” says the guy next to me. Thank God, I think to myself. If there is one thing that bugs me about bars, it is the fact that some think that it is morally OK to charge more than $2 for a PBR. In this commentator’s opinion, PBR is as much of a Milwaukee staple as brats and polka and should be lawfully regulated to under $2 a serving--tap, can, or bottle. As I sipped on my $1.75 PBR at Diamond Tap, I began to take in the environment. This was a working man’s bar. These men (and women) had just gotten off their first shift rounds and were sucking back some suds before heading home for the evening. I counted no less than eight union bumper stickers on the back of the bar. Pull tabs, jerky, chips, and warm nuts were offered as the spread of delicacies for this crowd. I talked to one guy who worked at Wrought Washer Co. about two blocks away here in Bay View. Did you know that Wrought is one of the largest washer manufacturers in the world? And I don’t mean the laundry kind. I mean the steal stamped little circles of metal that one uses to secure a bolt. They cost about 2 cents at Home Depot, I imagine.
Gerry’s Diamond Tap is a friendly place, almost everyone knew each other, as loud hollers would sound as someone would embrace his or her friend who just walked in the door. This is a little gem, one of the last of the true neighborhood bars that permeated Milwaukee streets throughout the past century--Judy, my bartender, had lived in Bay View since she was a kid. All in all, this is something you should check out if you want to have a cheap beer with real Milwaukeeans who know the value of an honest day’s work. And if that is not enough to entice you, they have a NASCAR league too!
Listing: Gerry's Diamond Tap
