The Arena Sports Bar and Grill

The Arena is a Heretic of downtown Ann Arbor bars

the owners are Michigan State graduates in the middle of Ann Arbor (hey not everyone can get into U of M)

when banning smoking became the trend, well the Arena lit up a cigarette, a cigar, and a joint.

Basically, the Arena is too cool to follow the fakie Hippie Ann Arbor rules and trends.  We also won’t jump on the pricey high end mood lit, we paid a lot of money to make our bar look this beat up and rustic BS.

The Arena is that hot kid in high school who refused to cheer at the pep rally…oh, you know what?  He was actually smoking outside in the parking lot during the pep rally and he hated that music you were listening to.  The Arena was never going to pretend to be something so you’d like him.  He didn’t care.  And the fact that he didn’t care made you like him.

That said, The Arena rarely participates in events held downtown.  Taste of Ann Arbor? We’ve got your taste of Ann Arbor but you’re going to have to walk your ass to our bar to try it!

So, I was kind of shocked to find out The Arena is participating in Restaurant Week.

http://annarborrestaurantweek.com/the-arena/

If you’re sick of the whole trying to be a part of the scene scene, come visit us. Good food, good beer, good view of your favorite game, no BS.

I know I was supposed to tell you all the dirty secrets of the Arena Anniversary party

and don’t fret

I will

But timing is timing

Have you met Julius?  I have.  Julius has worked in the building that houses the Arena since it was Metzgers.  And after he spent the majority of his life working for the historic German restaurant, he died.  After he died, he stayed.  Yes, Julius is a ghost and yes the Arena is haunted.

I know what you’re thinking…I’m an idiot girl believing in silly things like ghosts.  I am actually the opposite.  I am the hardest to sell when it comes to scary, creepy things.  In fact, I am the girl who will search for the logical cause before jumping to a ghost conclusion.

I first heard about Julius when I started working for the Arena eight years ago.  A certain red headed employee explained that the Metzger family informed the owners there was a ghost in the building and his name was Julius.  And no offense to the red head, but I thought she was a silly girl.  She explained that the empty bottles rattled for no reason, glasses crashed to the ground, and other equally creepy ghost things happened.  I nodded as I took the information in and thought in my mind, “all of that can be explained.”

My disbelief grew stronger when EVERYTHING was blamed on Julius.  If the TV’s froze, blame Julius.  If a glass fell from a counter, blame Julius, if the door locked on its own, blame Julius.  I snorted quietly when other people blamed Julius for logically explained events.

Until one day, while working as a bartender, I heard a noise coming from the basement.  It was the bottles rattling.  Someone blamed Julius.  I, in disbelief, ran down to the basement to see if something clicked on causing a vibration in the floor or walls which would cause the bottles to rattle.  There were no vibrations from heat, electricity, generators powering the taps, or even cars passing overhead on the street.  The bottles were simply rattling on their own.  My logical self got a little spooked.  I went upstairs unsure and a lot less arrogant regarding silly girls.

The next ACTUAL first-hand Julius experience occurred on a Monday night after bar close.  Jen, the Monday night bartender was finishing up some cleaning. Mike the owner, Jen, and I were casually talking.  A pint glass came crashing down from the service bar.  I had been leaning against the service bar, so I tried to shake it and see if my weight had caused the glass to fall.  No, pushing with all of my body weight, could not wiggle a single glass.  And it certainly wouldn’t have caused the glass to fall with the force that it did.  See, the glass didn’t just fall straight to the ground.  It got some distance.  We cleaned the glass and went back to finishing up and talking.  After everything was done Jen and Mike were talking.  A plastic pitcher that had been sitting on the shelf of the service bar for a good hour flew off the shelf and crashed on the ground.  It flew hard enough to graze the wall opposite the wait station.  If you know how the Arena is configured, you know the laws of gravity make that feat impossible…without the help of Julius.  We quickly grabbed our things and left.  I think someone mentioned, “Julius wants us out of here,” and we all obeyed.  Even the fearless muscle-bound Mike didn’t want to mess with Julius that day.

Another strange Julius event involved our TV’s.  The Arena has a bazillion TVs.  We want to make certain your football, hockey, or basketball game is on for you. But sometimes, when the only sport on is figure skating or the world tour of poker, we play CNN.  In order to change our channels, one must go into the basement and program them into a series of confusing boxes.  It is not your home cable programming. In order to help employees know how to change the channels for customers, we keep a list of stations programmed by the service bar.

The morning after a slow sports night, the morning shift walked in to find all of the TVs on Spike TV.  It was odd because our TV’s are rarely all on the same channel unless there is a huge game, like the final game of the World Series.  And even when there is a huge game, we don’t end the night without changing the TVs.  The morning manager thought it was strange and ran to the service bar to check the list.  Spike TV had never been programmed in the night before.  CNN had been.  And CNN was no longer available.  Julius, obviously, does not like CNN.

There are many, many more stories.  They mostly revolve around people getting a weird feeling, or seeing someone or something walking around the basement, when nobody is down there.  We even have someone who will not go downstairs by himself because Julius appeared to him.  This person NEVER believed my ghost stories before he had the first hand experience.

Julius is in fact so notorious, a ghost hunting group asked to come in and look for him.  However, due to our hours and the request to ghost hunt during football (aka busy season) we were unable to set it up for them.  Hopefully soon…so you all know I’m not just a silly girl believing in silly ghost stories.

Fall at the Arena is an adventure

The servers work increasingly more hours

and those hours are more entertaining

Football season in Ann Arbor is one huge party every weekend

the town comes alive and doubles in size

students and adults alike can be seen staggering down the streets in drunken stupors. The silliness that comes from intoxication is pure hilarity for those of in the unique position of being a sober witness

Michigan State weekend was wild

But for me, the highlight had to be the after bar close fight I saw on the street

Now, I’m not a fan of fighting and I don’t think it is funny to watch someone get hurt

BUT…The Friday night before the Michigan Michigan State game I was outside after close and watched two separate groups of people walking down the street

One group consisted of two Frat Boys from State, drunk and obnoxious

The other group was a Lesbian couple: one tiny more girly, girl and one very large very butch woman in a purple shirt and a baseball cap

Because of the distance between me and the fight, I’m not sure what was said

but I watched the large woman in the purple shirt punch the frat boy in the head and slam his face into a brick wall.  Judging from his behavior earlier, he probably said something offensive.  And judging from most the attitudes in the bar, the booze left him believing he was an invicable State fan.  While it’s not funny that she dropped him, the idea that he went home bruised and had to be reminded that he got his ass beat by a U of M Fan…who was in fact a WOMAN, makes me giggle.

The following weekend, was homecoming and the Iowa game

people traveled from all over to get to Ann Arbor for the game

I personally waited on a table full of guys from New York, none of which attended Michigan or Iowa, but were in town for the game

They were great tippers, lots of fun, and in general one of my favorite tables of the night.  However, at some point, after cashing out with me, two people in the group stayed and got some shots at the bar.  The two that stayed were the biggest two in the group.  Both stood at 6′ 4″ or taller and both were built like athletes.  Soon after consuming a few shots, they were clearly in need of bed.  One of the guys tried to help the other out the door and they began fake wrestling/fighting.  I have seen enough bar brawls start to know playing around like that while drunk usually starts a real fight and ends in a mess.  We ushered them out the door and watched as they wobbled into the street.

The bigger of the two was also the drunkest of the two and he did not want to leave.  But he was the problem.  His friend scolded him, tried to get him to behave, and worked at getting him to their hotel.  At some point, in the middle of the road, the two began to fight.  But it was a slow, drunken fight.  And due to their size and inability to connect it was more funny than serious.  Neither could connect and both were sort of slapping each others hands and wobbling into each other.  They looked like two bears alternating between hugging each other and having what my son calls, “a girl fight.”  They were both doggie paddling the air and slapping the tops of each others hands.

The crowd outside the bar started laughing at once.  It could have been ugly, there might have been lots of blood and an ambulance.  But instead it was the silliest fight I have ever witnessed in real life.  During the fight, both their hats fell off.  When they put them back on, they realized they had the wrong hats.  They stopped fighting, traded hats, laughed, and resumed their fight once again.  Once their cab arrived, they stopped fighting, thanked us for the great time, and went back to their hotel.

We all sort of shook our heads astonished

Like I said, we couldn’t make this up

Next, this blogger will detail The Arena anniversary party…

when the staff acts as poorly as our drunken customers!

Maybe it has to do with the warmer weather or maybe all the drinking occassions…

But spring time at the Arena causes younger men to act foolish. Sure, we have a few servers that can look in the general direction of a man and he will fall to his knees and profess his undying love.

Yes, we all know who these servers are

But during Spring or maybe around St. Patrick’s Day and the start of March madness, the feverish adoration of servers hits an all time high.

Last week for instance, one of our servers ran into an adoring fan.  The boy was clearly intoxicated and clearly thought he’d found the love of his life. He did his best to woo the server by offering to take her to a seafood dinner at Red Lobster, which made us both giggle. He shouted this offer at the top of his lungs several times while she ignored him. When he didn’t get the response he wanted he started to rock back and forth in his chair in an obscene manner and make an, “eee ooo eee ooo eee ooo,” noise. I’m not sure the intended outcome, but the server walked away and he started yelling at me.

“Angel face…..mumble, mumble. Seafood dinner. Red Lobster.”

I think he was trying to get me to help him on his quest to woo his server. But the whole Angel Face thing didn’t work. Given the fact that he was probably closer to my son’s age than mine, given the fact that I have worked in bars since I was 18, I have heard all the lines and seen more than he could imagine… Let’s just say I’m not flattered like I would be if I were an 18 year-old. Angel Face my ass little boy!

As soon as his server walked back into his line of vision he changed tactics. He bellowed from his chair, “We would make beautiful babies! Our genetics! Our genetics! You want beautiful babies, don’t you?”

And when that didn’t work he began describing the size of his body parts….which is, you know, super romantic.  I am sure once he goes into great detail about the size of said body part, he normally scores lots of dates. But this time, our poor young buck struck out and was dragged away by his embarrassed friends.

Oh yes, Spring is upon us at the Arena. Like clockwork the boys have started making fools of themselves.

One more thing to keep the waitstaff entertained!

No, not the band, that would be way better

literally bum fighters

not to worry, it doesn’t happen all the time.  But every so often, mostly near the 1st of the month, we get some skid row types looking to get drunk on the cheap. Given the Arena has great happy hour specials and is located very close to a shelter, we end up being the bar of choice.

Let me add that not all homeless people are drunks, nor do all homeless people cause trouble.  Working at the Arena all these years has taught me that many have faced hard times and are doing everything within their power to change their situation.  But, the people that stand out are the people that are addicts of one type or another and end up causing trouble.

We have a sort-of-regular, I’ll call Mountain Man Merv, because I don’t know his name and he always appears to have just stepped out of a month long trip into the woods.  He is dirty. his beard is bushy and unkept, and he appears to have his camping gear with him at all times.

Now Mountain Man Merv isn’t usually a problem.  The biggest difficulty we have with him is his desire to nap at the pool table and the company he keeps.  Two weeks ago he brought in Mountain Man Merv Jr.  The man looked exactly like him but younger.  They shot a game of pool while drinking two dollar domestic pints like we might run out. 

Jr. did not like how the pool game was panning out and began pushing Moutain man Merv and swearing loudly.  There were small children walking through with their parents,

I tend to deal with drunk people much the way a Mom might deal with an unruly child.  I gave Merv and Junior a lecture about little kids trying to have dinner with their parents, not needing to hear or see that kind of behavior.  I told them they could push each other and swear outside if they wanted to act the way they were acting. 

That’s the good thing about Arena bum fights.  It is easy for anyone to stop them.  It’s the twenty one year-old frat boy fights or the angry drunk girls that are most difficult to calm.  Bum fights usually lack the physical endurance and motor skills to become serious.  Not to mention, bums are used to not being welcome.  So when they find a place like the Arena…a place that will accept their money the same as we will accept the money of anyone else, they try their best to not get banned. 

Last night Mountain Man Merv was back, but he left Jr somewhere else.  He was on a mission and didn’t want Jr to ruin it for him.  He had money to spend and wanted to get drunk before the day ended.

Yesterday, Merv brought 2 friends in with him.  A woman that appeared to be newer to the homeless scene.  She seemed a little healthier and a little closer to fitting in with average society.  She was built like a light weight wrestler or a gymnast.  The third person was an older man that looked like he might not be homeless at all.  He was clean, had a nice coat and aside from age, seemed to be in pretty good health.  He looked like somebody’s grandfather and not at all like he’d been sleeping in the woods for years. The only indication that he was homless was his lack of dental care.

They were all behaving well until I heard the woman say something very vulgar to the older man.  She was yelling that he liked little girls and was very graphic.  Then she landed a loud, well placed slap on his cheek that I knew had to sting.

(Speak of the devil…Mountain Man Merv just walked in and ordered 3 $2 pints for him and his new group of friends! PS Merv tips better than most college students.)

Anyway, Mike, the owner was there to keep a close eye on the crew

Then, the woman landed another well placed slap.  Mike stormed over and told her to stop or he would kick her out.

Minutes later I watched the old man take the winter hat from her head and dance a child-like taunting dance at her.  She had a lit cigarette and backhanded him, cigarette first across the mouth.  He grabbed his face and I thought he might actually be hurt.  Remember, she is built like an athlete and he is an old man.  Mike confronted them, and told them both to leave in a way that conveyed  it was in their best interest to leave and not argue. 

The older man agreed and tried to pound his beer quickly.  The woman, however, thought there was room for discussion.

I paid for this beer!

I’m not leaving yet!

He’s the problem not me!

You’re going to have to call the cops!

That last sentence was it.  Mike responded calmly, “No, I don’t have to call the cops, I will drag you out of here and set your ass on the curb and the cops won’t have anything to do with it.”

She looked in his eyes, realized he was serious and walked out on her own.  About twenty minutes later Merv, who was allowed to stay, fell asleep on his table and had to leave too.

Like I said before, never a character shortage at the Arena. Bum fighters, obnoxious Republicans, people that wish to pay using Japanese yen…

In the words of most of the Arena staff, It’s funny because it’s true.