Place #10: Brit's Pub, Minneapolis

I was slightly lost... as usual, of course (in more ways than one).

I pulled into the parking garage closest to Nicollet Mall and crossed my fingers. I was slightly panicked (sort of, in a way…) about which direction to take once I got out of my car and started walking. As I exited the garage and stood on the corner of 2nd (and was it, 11th?), I sought out a ridiculously desperate option. I don’t know what came over me, really. It’s an unexplainable phenomenon the way a woman processes a semi-crisis through some sort of uncontrollable primitive reflex that results in nothing more than a moment lost to the dignity of believing oneself to be beyond such impulses. But there I was, submitting to that reflex, that inadvertent vie for attention, or affection, or protection from a person you’re attracted to. I took out my phone and called my date, and playing nothing short of a damsel in distress I left a voicemail in a voice that was a slightly higher octave than normal, using words like, “I’m lost! Help me!” Oh, Jessica. Tisk, tisk. Immediately after I hung up, I took a look around and saw Nicollet Mall straight ahead of me. Good grief. Seriously, Woman? Own up to your independence just a tad, will you? I literally rolled my eyes at myself and started walking toward the green street sign that practically shouted “Nicollet Mall, you idiot!” Brit’s was right around the bend.

Cool joint, let me tell you. Outstretched across the sidewalk area was a large outdoor front patio, European flags fluttering high above on poles jutting out from the rooftop. Through the pair of huge, front wooden doors there was a couch area to my right, and the bar to my left. Above a faux fireplace was the Queen, in all of her majestic glory, gazing down upon the patrons from a golden frame high on the wall. In fact, if you gave a good look around she was sort of everywhere (which was slightly unnerving).

More flags hung from the fourteen foot plus high ceiling over the entryway barroom of the pub, and straight ahead was a wide stairwell with an English style banister leading up to the roof. Off to the back left of the place was another room, another bar. My date and I finally met up and headed upstairs to the rooftop.

Reaching the rooftop I was greeted by a bright red British telephone booth to my left (anyone going to the Ministry of Magic?),

and out in front of me was an impressive acre of stonewalled-in lawn for lawn bowling. Ho. Here it was, Reader. This was one of the most important reasons I wanted to come here: lawn bowling.

Lawn bowling, however, was something I had never heard of until I read about it on Brit’s website, and in my ever hopefully charming ignorance and childlike imagination I had deduced “lawn bowling” to be something far more primitive and college-party invented (like beer pong). What I had envisioned in my head was… well, slightly cartoonish and abstract, and extremely ridiculous. I imagined a sort of chaotic ecstasy of strangers bowling with American bowling balls down unmarked lanes toward pins that were ideally (and rather dangerously) set up by hand. I imagined drunk, happy-go-lucky people getting in each other’s way, bonding through intoxication and mishap, through accidents and non-competitive natures. I literally saw piggy-back rides, people rolling bowling balls through the legs of friends lined up in a row, bowling balls cracking into each other as drunken competitors couldn’t keep their lanes straight, all with the grand, unrealistic idea that not one person would be irritated or outraged by the chaos but rather embrace it with this sort of marvelous rapture. Utopia. I was imagining a ludicrous utopia. (I am such a hippie…)

When I first saw the lawn out in front of me, presenting itself as an empty, pristine, almost professional looking stadium, I thought, “Huh. Not at all what I had in my head….” That was clearly an understatement. My date knew a little more about it than I did. He said that lawn bowling (which is an actual British sport) was similar to croquet. Oh. Huh. In comparison to my fantasy, this sounded dry-heavingly boring. Bowling, to me, means throwing a heavy ball and knocking things down. Doing it drunk is even more exhilarating and expelling. But alas! This was not a probability.

Across the lawn mounted on an adjacent building wall was an enormous flat screen.

Apparently they show movies for the rooftop patrons from time to time, a definite reason to return. On the massive walls of the pub itself were larger than life sized score boards and pub advertisement murals. Everything about this place screamed mass enormity and bold scales of size. The rooftop patio was large enough to fit hundreds of people. I was impressed, indeed.

Service for the night, however, was a little subjective. I think we happened to get a waitress who may have been at the end of her shift, or was just not having the right kind of day. For no apparent reason she snatched away our drink menu without asking if we were done with it. After two drinks, this is not okay. Maybe I looked at her wrong…? I have that effect sometimes. My face responds to the stupid things I’m thinking about, and I often give strangers a stink eye without meaning to. Oh that Jessica and her random stink eye…

After shamelessly taking pictures of people in fanny packs, sandals and kaki shorts, slutty short skirts and other interesting apparel, we ended up transporting ourselves inside down to the entryway barroom.

The couch under the largest painting of the Queen was recently vacated, so I made the executive decision to bounce myself on to it. Comfy! There was a great deal of “people watching” from this point of view, including several bachelorette parties that wandered in.

One particular bride carried in a giant blow-up doll in the shape of a cactus with a semi-offensive Mexican man’s face drawn on to it.

I asked her if I could take a picture of her with it, and in her spunk she invited me to sign the cactus. She handed me a Sharpie, and as I was slow to think from my buzz the most clever thing I could think to write on it was, “Me so hot!” right above the genitalia area. Had I been a little more sober I would’ve gone with using a dirty “poke” or “prickly” pun. Darn it all. I finished my stupid little phrase with a scribbly, unreadable “JC”.

We eventually left Brit’s to hit another joint, but I left feeling pretty satisfied with this find. I will definitely be returning to this hotspot.