What was it like at Betty Meyer's Bullwinkle Cafe?

September 1, 2020 1:05 PM

I lived in Rochester, NY for a while. I always meant to visit Betty Meyer's Bullwinkle Cafe and didn't ever get there before they closed. What songs would have regularly been in rotation there? (I'm generally familiar with the concept of the Great American Songbook and that "standards" exist. I'm looking for specifics where possible.) Are there other establishments like this, a cross between a piano bar, a participatory experience, and a time machine?
posted by knile to Travel & Transportation around Rochester, NY (1 answer total)

Marie's Crisis in NYC is two out of three, not so much a time machine. It's unlike most other piano bars in that it is 95% of the time (except when someone is doing a solo) an all-in participatory thing, people standing around the piano in a very shabby basement bar belting at the top of their lungs. I miss the fucking fuck out of it, though I was only an occasional regular. Like everything else, it's in limbo, but the pianists there have been doing tons of online time, streaming on facebook. If you've gone to Marie's, it's a sweet though pale reminder. If you haven't been, it wouldn't give you much of a flavor of the place.
posted by less of course at 1:11 PM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]