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Travels With Phoebeor
Quest for Sportsmen
by John Butcher
At the meeting on February 17, Conley Booth asked the Association to support his application for an unlimited ABC license for MacArthur’s. The current license, at the behest of your Board of Directors, requires him to shut at midnight. With some prodding from the members present, Mr. Booth admitted that he owns two other restaurants, Sportsman I at 3306 Williamsburg Road and Sportsman II at 7526 Mechanicsville Turnpike.
We thought Mr. Booth's existing restaurants might provide some insight into what MacArthur's could become with an unrestricted liquor license (which would let MacArthurs stay open until 2:00 a.m.). So on Wednesday evening, March 25, we were in Phoebe’s new Mitsubishi, looking for the Sportsman I. We drove east on Williamsburg Road from Laburnum, past Bubba’s. We turned in to the parking lot in front of the large, empty building we think is the former The Grocery Store. "Sportsmen," as the sign calls it, is beyond the Family Dollar, and next to Action Styles & Perms by Marie. We could tell it was the right place by the crowd in the parking lot: six cars, twelve pickup trucks, one RV, one conversion van, and one wrecker.
Phoebe led the Task Force through the door and into a feeding frenzy for the senses: The billows of cigarette smoke teared our eyes, and made us blink into the red glow of the neon strips on the walls. The jukebox smothered the clicks from the pool tables. The tangy perfume of the smoke complemented the fragrance of beer spilled long ago. Soon enough the twin elixirs of Budweiser and onion rings would race to lubricate our digestive tracts (well, two of them; Phoebe doesn’t drink beer, even though she is Death to onion rings).
Every head in the place swiveled to watch us. Twenty-one males (eleven with baseball caps), four females, one person of uncertain gender (with no cap), and the bartender (female). They saw Phoebe (who sometimes is known as Holly Anna Jones, the former President of This Association) regal in her black duster with the fur collar. They saw Chuck Epes (who always is known as Chuck Epes, the current President of This Association), yuppie, wispy, and crisp in his L.L. Bean jacket with the wide tie showing one paramecium shape after another, racing to do God knows what to each other. They saw John Butcher, still in his blue suit from work, 6-7, 300, and ugly as a hangover.
The one waitress let us sit long enough to make it clear we should come to the bar like everybody else, and then she sauntered over. She had Bud Lite, Bud, and Icehouse on draught. Phoebe asked for the menu. She got what looked to be the only menu. This short list came in an oily plastic sleeve and reminded us of the menu at MacArthur’s. It featured the same onion rings.
While we waited for the Bud and onion rings, we read the sign over the kitchen door: "Pay phone broken; don’t ask to use mine." Then we scanned the ABC list and the Menu on the adjacent wall. We don’t know any of the ABC managers, other than Mr. Booth and his spouse. We did recognize the entries on the menu: Wing Dings, Steak & Cheese Sub, Cheese Burger, 9" Pizza with toppings, and Chef Salad.
We did not see any of that food on the bar or on the tables. Indeed, over the course of an hour the only edible solids we saw were the basket of onion rings delivered to our table and another basket delivered to the table in the far corner behind the pool tables. In the same period we saw enough long necked bottles to start a recycling business. At our table, the Bud tasted the same as the MacArthur’s Bud does.
The check came to $10.50. They wouldn’t take Epes’ credit card. They won’t take anybody’s credit card. Epes now owes Butcher four Buds and a double batch of greasy onion rings.
As we rode back down Laburnum Avenue toward Bellevue, we gently reviewed the carbonated grease in our stomachs and we reflected on the Sportsman I: This is your basic bar. People there drink and smoke and drink and play pool and drink and shout to be heard over the jukebox and drink. It is a "restaurant" only because the ABC calls it one. It fits right in on Williamsburg Road.
At MacArthur’s it already is hard to get a nonliquid meal after nine o’clock. With an unrestricted license will the place expand into the Rich’s Stiches space next door and into the early morning hours, and grow up to be Sportsman III? We now are ready for the debate over whether the Association should support the license amendment that would permit that.
Last updated 02/24/02
Please send questions or comments to John Butcher