Saying Goodbye to the Back Door

Via IDScanner

One of my early romantic relationships started with a date at the Funny Farm, later to become Comedy Caravan. Our first stop on that much-anticipated first date was at a new-to-me bar called The Back Door.

I remember being struck by the odd location, in the back of a 1960s-era shopping mall. If you didn’t know the Back Door was there, you probably would never have noticed it.

It was 1988, and I was 22. I had just started my first full-time job as a news reporter, my long writing career finally lifting off the runway. I sipped a Miller Lite, and I remember we sat at a small table in the small space that later became a game room. MTV played on a TV screen.

The only video I remember us watching as we talked nervously and sipped our drinks was “Groovy Kind of Love,” the cover version by Phil Collins.

My date said, “Oh, it’s ‘groovy kind of love.’ I thought he was singing ‘gooey kind of love.’” And we cracked up. It was the first of many wonderful times we shared, however briefly, as a couple, and my very first Back Door memory.

I would spend a lot of evenings in that place over the next three-plus decades. Made a lot of memories. Drank a lot of beers and, later, margaritas. Ate a lot of wings and Back Burner Wontons. So, yes, when the old bar closed without warning this week, it felt a little bit like a death in the family.

So, I felt the need to reminisce.

A Highlands Staple

I became a Highlands brat because of that young woman. She lived with her lovely mother on Stevens Avenue, right behind what I believe was a Pier One (and which later became the famed ear X-tacy store). We found ourselves quite often at Another Place Sandwich Shop (watched the 1989 NCAA Men’s Championship there) and Za’s Pizza. We had lunch a few times at Sweet and Savory Café.

And of course, because it was so close, we often went to the Funny Farm, with the requisite visit to The Back Door beforehand. (And, many times, afterward as well.) She later moved to West Virginia, and we drifted apart, but I continued to haunt the Highlands with friends. Three of those friends, the ones who became mainstays, were Greg, Sara (aka The Bar Belle) and Laura. This era started in earnest around 2000.

Greg had recently returned home from a long stint in the military, so he and I were making up for lost time. I introduced him to Sara and Laura, who had been friends since high school and had recently moved to Louisville, and we became runabouts, going to see local bands, hitting various restaurants and bars, and just generally being great buddies. The Back Door became our favorite, and that affection only intensified when Greg and I decided to share a rental home just a block or two away.

It was quite a year, that time he and I spent there. We often joke to this day that if the owners hadn’t decided to move back in at the end of our lease, we both may have died in that house of liver failure. The old house on Rosewood Drive had a great porch, and we would find ourselves sitting out there many evenings drinking Chillable Red boxed wine – it was like Hawaiian Punch for grown-ups!

I introduced my 13-year-old son to my record collection in that house in the shadow of the Back Door, and Dio’s “Holy Diver” blew him away. (“Dad, I don’t mean to be morbid,” he said, “but when you die, I want your record collection.”) The lone New Year’s Eve party Greg and I held there was beyond epic. We moved the kitchen table out so our female guests could dance, Scott kept sneaking my girlfriend’s daquiris to the point I made him promise not to tell his mother, and it was a good day.

I was sitting on our couch in that house when Scott called to give me the news that Joey Ramone had died. That was not a good day.

A lot of balls got knocked together at the Back Door. Courtesy of the Back Door

Greg and I played pub trivia in the neighborhood, ate at Wick’s and Café Mimosa (RIP), went to Judge Roy Bean’s and Barret Bar, and pretty much every night on the walk home, we stopped at the Back Door for one last beer or margarita. Sometimes, we played pool. Mostly, we just hung out and talked to women. (And this stuff happened on work nights, too. We were much younger and dumber then – it’s much easier to be old and dumb and get home by 7:30 on a Tuesday.)

Sara and Laura often met us at the Back Door on weekends (Laura lived behind the side parking lot for a while), and we would share wings and wontons. We laughed. Told bad jokes. Talked about our dating woes. Greg always wound up spending his change on handfuls of peanut M&Ms from the vending machine by the men’s room. It truly was the good old days, and while the specific memories have blurred with time like a pixelated photo, the feeling of that era remains strong in my soul.

I loved those times and I love those friends.

When I departed LEO Weekly, my farewell party happened – you guessed it – at the Back Door. Friends and co-workers showed up, I received parting gifts and another memorable night unfolded. And speaking of LEO, Thursday night happy hour for LEO employees began in those days, and continued right up until the end, although I became a rarer and rarer attendee over the years.

Divorce Party

I got a divorce in 2003. It had been a short and tumultuous marriage, one I was glad to be moving on from. That’s all I’ll say about that.

The divorce attorney I employed was sympathetic to my situation. We talked by phone fairly regularly through the process, met a few times, and generally became friendly acquaintances. My circle of friends, happy that I was moving on, gathered together to celebrate at a divorce party.

That party was held at the Back Door, because of course it was. I can’t recall exactly who was there other than Greg, Laura and Sara, as people came and went (and tequila was involved), but I distinctly remember turning to find an outstretched hand, ready for me to shake. It was Matt Golden, my attorney. He bought me a drink and told me how happy he was for me. (I ran into him for the first time in probably 15 years just moments after the Back Door news broke, incredibly.)

But that was a great capper to yet another memorable evening at the Back Door. Although, I remember that as my date Jen was driving me home, anytime she made a turn I would tip over in my seat, giggling like an idiot, her giggling with me and trying to get me to sit up again.

Back Door by Way of Texas

Sometime in the mid-2000s, I went to San Antonio on business. Working as a marketing manager for a local company (that was a different time, different career arc), I wound up taking a meeting with a sales rep for a broadcasting company while there – she was looking to get a chunk of my more than $1 million marketing budget for the four markets my company inhabited.

Her name was Monica, and she picked me up at my hotel for happy hour, taking me first to a Mexican restaurant for what she deemed the best margaritas in the city. I noticed she was wearing very tight-fitting clothes which, shall we say, emphasized her attributes. After the margaritas, it was a lavish sushi dinner, during which at some point she literally said, “Kevin, what do I have to do to win your business?” (I thought, “She might be flirting.”)

After dinner, still with no promise of making any money from me, she took me to a dive bar with a name I cannot recall. At some point as we stood by the bar, I said, “If you ever get to Louisville, I’ll take you to my favorite bar, The Back Door.”

She laughed heartily and quickly latched onto my saying I was going to “take her to The Back Door.” She referred to it the rest of the evening, giving me a comically weird look every time she said it. When she finally dropped me off at my hotel around midnight, ultimately realizing I was not interested in flirting back (or whatever the hell she had in mind), I said, “I will give you credit. You are really good at your job.” She laughed and said, “I use the tools god gave me.”

The next morning, I went into my makeshift workspace and a co-worker said, “A young lady left something here for you.” It was a gift from Monica of a souvenir San Antonio beer mug and a thank you card, and in it she thanked me for going out with her. She also said that she couldn’t wait until I “took her to The Back Door.”

I never heard from her again.

A First Kiss

Some 13 years ago, I went on a date with a woman named Cynthia. We saw “The King’s Speech” at Baxter Avenue Theaters. It was our third or fourth date, and afterward, she gave me something she had picked up while out of town, which had reminded her of me. I asked her if she wanted to walk over to the Back Door for a drink, but she declined. I kissed her goodnight anyway, and it was the first time our lips ever touched.

Eleven years later, we got engaged.

Movie Night

Courtesy of the Back Door

In more recent times, my more recent friend Laura (I confess, I know a lot of Lauras for some reason) and I began the tradition of movie nights at Baxter Avenue Theaters. We would watch a late-afternoon movie, then go to the Back Door for margaritas in the shadow of that amazing mural by Bill Page, featuring the faces of regulars past and present. Sometimes our friends Becky and Jess would join us.

One bartender began recognizing “Laura 2” and me and would instinctively ask, “What did you guys see today?” (He had nerdy and weird taste in movies like we do.)

One of my favorite movie nights with Laura 2 involved us landing at the Back Door early before a 6 p.m. movie. The plan? To have one drink, then walk next door. Time slipped, and when the bartender walked over to see if we wanted a second round, I told Laura, “If we don’t leave now, we’re going to miss the movie.”

Laura looked at me silently, then turned to the bartender and said, “Another round.”

We missed the movie. But such is the pull of the Back Door. We had seats at the bar amongst the regulars and we really didn’t want to leave. I wish we were somehow still sitting there right now, in perpetuity. It was a good day.

Burner Wings

I thought I had more time. RIP, Burner Wings. Photo by Kevin Gibson

If you read these pages, you know I love spicy food. Greg and I went to the Back Door following a movie outing of our own a couple of years ago, both of us plenty hungry. We each got an order of wings, and I decided, for the first time, to skip the standard Hot and get the top-of-the-heat-scale Burner wings.

I expected a spicier version of the Back Door’s Buffalo sauce, but instead got a pile of the standard hot wings that were smothered in some sort of orange-ish salsa or relish. I took a bite and … WOW. Hot. Very hot. And delicious. I asked the bartender (same guy who liked nerdy movies) what that stuff was, and he informed me that it was a habanero relish. And there looked to be a quart of the stuff in that basket.

I powered on, but about halfway through my wings, I had to come up for air. I got a to-go box and separated the wings from the relish. Why? Because I would ultimately use that mass of leftover condiment on tacos, quesadillas, whatever I could pair it with over the next few days. The leftover wings were good, too.

I kept thinking I was going to go back and get another order of those wings, or at least ask if I could buy some of the relish to go during a Back Door visit. I really thought it would ultimately happen, but I always forgot or came up with a reason not to do it. Not this time. Next time. I thought I had more time.

Sara I were judges at the 2015 Halloween costume contest. She and I had a joint book signing even there. I like to think that every Louisvillian has a memory of the Back Door. And then, on May 13, awful Monday the 13th, the announcement came that The Back Door had abruptly closed. For good. And that was that.

Halloween night, 2015. Courtesy of the Back Door

One Last Time

But it doesn’t end there for me and my friends, who will no doubt grieve for a long time. Why? Because these days, getting Sara, Laura 1, Greg and me together, just the four of us, anywhere just doesn’t happen. I get together independently with all of them on a regular basis, and sometimes it’s Sara, Laura and me. But we are, of course, older now, with different lives. Greg is married. I am engaged. Sara has a significant other, Laura has a busy work schedule and we all have other friend circles now.

But for the past few years, whenever I talk to Sara, the topic comes up that we need to get the four of us together at the Back Door again. No significant others, no outside friends, just the four of us. It remained elusive due to those pesky lives and schedules.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, we found a date. We booked it. The Great Back Door Reunion was on. And it was scheduled for … Friday, May 17, 2024. Just four days after the awful news came out. It was supposed to be a good day.

Yes, we’re going to get together elsewhere at that time, at another bar we all love – that would be Spring Street Bar & Grill, which has enough good memories attached to it to fill in. But it won’t be quite the same. No mural. No peanut M&Ms. No divorce party stories.

So, farewell, Back Door. If you were a living entity, I would give you the biggest hug ever, with a tear in my eye, and wish you well. That would be closure. All I have instead are memories. But boy, are they happy ones.