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Along with entertaining stories delivered
in a charming southern drawl, bartender
Chris “Tennessee” Hubbard serves a lady’s
favorite, the Melon Revolution martini,
at GoodSons. |
By Amber Williams
It starts in the bathroom on a stall door or
wall, then it moves to the mirrors over the
sink. Next thing you know there’s graffiti on
the wall outside the bathroom, where a patron
doing the pee-pee dance had attempted to wait
patiently by writing her name in three-dimensional
cursive. Bar owners constantly battle with drunken
graffiti. Some embrace it by allowing it, and
calling it décor. But even then, when the overlapping
artwork starts to look unbecoming, the bar owner
must spring for a few gallons of paint to clear
the canvas and start anew.
But at GoodSons, they’ve figured out something
genius in the way of accepting, and even appreciating,
the artist in us all — chalk. It’s cheap, and
it’s erasable.
Patrons can claim their spots at the bar by
writing their names on it, parents can let their
kids draw all over the table or wall while they
wait for their pizza and artists can release
their pent-up expressions with a mural that
says it all.
“A lot of people come in here and spend hours
— all day sometimes — decorating the tables
and all over the bar. They spend hours and hours,”
said bartender Chris “Tennessee” Hubbard in
a sexy southern drawl. “We get a real mixed
bag of young and old in here.”
It’s true. Even on a so-called “dead” Tuesday
afternoon, the walls are lined with people of
all colors and styles, including a local youth
pastor, a spandex-clad cyclist and a dread-head
with blown out earlobe holes.
“We get a lot of cyclists,” a loyal patron chimed
in, pointing out the bicycle lane that runs
down Beaver Avenue. He went on to talk about
how much he loves to ride, how much he misses
Beaverdale’s old A.K. O’Connors and how much
he despises the notion that Beaverdale might
someday compare to West Des Moines shopping
districts.
But it’s true the neighborhood has much to offer,
and you can see it all from the bar, tables
or patio of GoodSons, as it overlooks the bustling
Beaverdale. The bar sees an influx of eclectic
crowds following Tuesday’s farmers’ market down
the street, the annual Beaverdale Festival and
the bar’s annual Beaver Fever party, which lends
itself to too many jokes for this story. You
can hear them while bellying up to the bar,
as some of the ornery regulars exchange dirty
jokes and laugh at Tennessee Chris’ silly southern
expressions that make for good storytelling
(such as the time he was “madder than a midget
with a yo-yo”).
“I like this place, because they run off the
grumps,” bellowed a goofy-looking guy wearing
a camou cap and orange-rimmed glasses. “When
grumpy people come in here, everybody’s having
a good time, and they can’t stand it. And I
love it, because I can’t stand grumps.” CV
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GoodSons
2815 Beaver Ave., Suite 102
(515) 255-1912
Hours: Mon., 3 p.m.-2 a.m.; Tues.-Sun., 11
a.m.-2 a.m.
Kitchen: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. during the week; 11
a.m.-11 p.m., Fri.-Sun.
Happy Hour: 11 a.m.-6 p.m., seven days a week
Capacity: 83 |
