Hardtimes

Small and neat place… Fancy glasses for on tap beers… They make some pizzas but you are welcome to bring your own food… That’s really nice… Loved being here… Shall visit again…

the coldest beer in the qc. i love this little dive bar.
if you go a lot make sure you get a number and sign the book.
you could win some money.

How can you NOT go to a bar that is so incredibly self-​aware in its branding, so straightforward in approach? My friend Berger and I asked ourselves the same question when we embarked on a journey to Hard Times one lazy summer afternoon, around 4:30 PM.
The name couldn’t be more perfect: the bar, and its clientele, have clearly seen better days. The exterior is essentially a white cement box with no windows and a single sign bearing the name as though it were a harbinger of doom. On the inside, however, the clouds lifted; we had a seat at the bar, control over the remote for the nearest TV, and two big glasses of frosty Bud Light for which we paid mere tuppence.
It was probably clear to the bartender that we were there on a lark, though I was dressed like something of a hippie and Berger was wearing grubby flannel and a bandana like something outta the backwoods. Despite the obviousness of our slumming, we were treated kindly.
That good old fashioned midwestern hospitality didn’t just come from the bartender, neither, h’yuk. An old fella by the name of David sidled up and decided to chat with us a bit before buying some package liquor. This poor old burnout apparently lived somewhere down the road and insisted that his cat, I kid you not, his cat, made him come to the bar several times a night so that the cat could drink some of his beer. He also insisted, quite fervently, that the cat could speak to raccoons and would warn them to stay away from the house. Not really knowing what else to do, we obliged him in conversation about how cats are really intelligent animals, who happen to hit the sauce now and again, thus lending some plausibility to his tales.
Lucky for him, I guess, that we were both cat people.
Yeah, we left shortly after that, but besides cat-​centric wackiness, the visit wasn’t quite the descent into hell we’d been expecting. Hard Times is a quintessential dive bar offering a little slice of life to write home about.