Cloggy’s Tavern

Dive bars are so hip right now.
People want to go somewhere that isn’t pretentious. A place that doesn’t have «mood lighting» that gets turned on at 7pm, doesn’t get filled with people looking to «hook up».
I am one of those people. I like dive bars.
So, Saturday night we took a mini dive bar tour in south Minneapolis. Cloggy’s was second on the list, and as we walked in the door… I knew this was my kind of dive bar.
I’ve thought a lot about this, and I think a good dive bar needs to meet a couple of requirements:
1) Cheap beer (Cloggy’s — yep! $ 7 for a pitcher of the King)
2) A jukebox, preferably loaded with 80s rock (Check)
3) A pool talbe, dart board or any combination thereof (Pool tables)
4) A not-​so-​great looking bartender who is more than a bit crabby (Check)
5) An out of order cash machine (Yup)
6) A list of drink prices, printed and posted on the wall (Uh huh)
Cloggy’s meets all of these requirements, hands down.
You can’t expect much from a dive bar, except a quiet place to drink alone, a consistent opportunity to get into a bar fight and the ever-​present possibility that you’ll be bummed for a smoke.
I like dive bars. I’ll drink to that.

Alright.
I am not giving this place a 5 star rating because it’s a great bar.
I’m giving it a 5 star rating because of all the crazy shit that happened.
It is to say in the least, that it was a memorable night.
Upon coming to Cloggy’s,
I had my boob grabbed within 5 minutes of walking in the door.
Not kidding.
My best friend was ordering us a couple drinks
when I saw a man sitting next to him that was clearly wasted.
The man was probably 55 or so and was slouching in his chair,
hiccuping occasionally.
I tapped him on the shoulder and said
«gee, it sounds like you have the hiccups, there».
He stared at me for a moment and then stared at my boobs.
Then without warning,
he reached over and grabbed one of my boobs.
Awesome.
So I walked away and waited for my friend to bring me my beer
at a safe arm’s length distance from Mr. Gropey-​Groperton.
The Groper guy’s name ended up being Jim.
And he ended up getting shoved out into the street
during a severe rain storm
by the bar tender named Jeremy.
Yup, shoved.
Like, hard.
To the point that Jim fell flat on his butt in a big puddle.
Obviously a high point of Jim’s life.
Then my bestie had to go pee pee,
so he went to the men’s room to unload.
When he got to the men’s room,
he discovered a dude standing there
with a plastic shopping bag over his head.
The guy had removed his shoes and placed them
on the floor beside him.
In his hand, an aerosal can of cleaning product
that he had found in the cabinet under the sink.
Classy.
Some dude came to Cloggy’s to huff their cleaning product.
Awesome.
I’m so coming back here.

OMG — this place is a dump. I don’t know how everyone was so wasted — they only serve 3.2 beer. Nothing else. Even after the smoking ban, people were smoking in this joint. A woman, between hiccups, hit on my husband — that’s always fun. The place is so small and because of it, the karaōke is SO loud. You cannot hear anything. The pool table is in front of the karaōke, so singers get to dodge the pool sticks.

If one does not mind going to a 3.2 bar and loves the small town feel in the big city, Cloggys is your place. This place has regulars galore but on the weekends for sure a bunch of people that love to party. On Fridays they have Karaōke and other events on other nights. It’s small but always a fun time!