By Erin Randolph erin@dmcityview.com

Year-old Tanner's Pub remains a kept secret

Another night of drinking, another night of drinking in a strip mall. It's becoming an all-too familiar tale for the Bar Fly, as the suburbs seem incapable of producing drinking establishments not connected to furniture stores, Mexican restaurants and otherwise-bland office spaces. On a Thursday night, the Bar Fly decides to head to Tanner's Pub, 9965 Swanson Boulevard in Clive, a space flanked by Home Team Pizza and Mazatlan, with Drinking Assistants Chris, Brian and Shitty (obviously a nickname).

Our experience with Tanner's has been pretty hit or miss, depending on the crowd that is occupying the bar. There might be five people in the bar or there might be 50. Early, the space is teeming with middle-aged couples out for a few post-work drinks. But as they leave so they can be home in time for the evening news, the bar usually becomes overrun by young, mostly preppy suburbanites looking for a good time and a few drinks at the small, quaint and comfy bar.

This isn't so much a meet, greet and take home to breed kind of bar. It's laid back and quiet, save the din of conversation and the songs playing on the electronic TouchTunes. Near the entrance of the bar sits a small nook occupied by a comfortable couch and a wood bookcase filled with books. Some nights of the week, however, even that's taken over by a karaoke DJ.

"One-tenth of the bar is cool, and that's the lounge area," D.A. Brian says. "We need more bars that have good scenery. Tanner's has a bookshelf and a couch and a table where people can just hang out. If the entire bar was like that, that would be awesome."

We decide to take a seat in the back of the bar - of course, near the pool table. Thursday nights at Tanner's mean $2.50 domestic bottles and $2.75 wells, though Wednesdays ($2 wells), Fridays ($2.50 imports, the best deal we've seen since the now-defunct $2 import night at Cabaret, which we miss dearly) and Saturdays ($4 domestic pitchers) are worth mentioning. We've never seen a cover at Tanner's, so drink specials like these are always a welcomed friend of our pocketbooks. Our bartender, 25-year-old Jo, says Saturday nights are the busiest thanks to the pub's drink special.

That sure beats our trip to a downtown bar on New Year's, where well drinks were served out of glorified Dixie cups. Shitty paid something like $7 for this miniature version of a Jack and Coke, albeit begrudgingly, especially after paying a cover at the door.

"I said, 'Hey, would you mind pouring a drink?'" Shitty says. "He said, 'This is our drink.' I said, listen man, I'm a fat kid. Would you mind pouring me a Jack with a splash of Coke?"

Thankfully we don't have that problem at Tanner's on this Thursday. There are only a handful of people here on this night, including a bartender bellied up to the bar that we recognize from nearby Cabaret Lounge. Because of the low turnout, D.A. Chris is able to commandeer the jukebox for a good half hour with an extremely random mix of songs by bands like Widespread Panic, Brooks & Dunn, Def Leopard, The Smiths and Journey, while we play pool in the shadow of a black-and-white framed (everything on the walls is framed here, even the beer signs) poster of Clint Eastwood shooting some pool, as well.

Our night goes by rather quickly and uneventfully. Bartender Jo takes good care of us, making sure we always have full drinks and a clean ashtray. We close the bar down. And we're the last people there - except, of course, the lone guy still sitting at the bar trying to hit on Jo. The life of a bartender is never dull, not even at Tanner's. CV

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