TALK ABOUT ANYTHING (EXCEPT FOR POLITICS)
By David Frank

—The Que Bar is an alright place where our writer visits on occasion when his best friend arrives in Iowa City.

When my buddy Dan comes into to town, we always go to The Que Bar. Not because it’s anything outstanding, but rather because it has cheap pitchers of Busch-Light, and Dan is an utter cheap ass who doesn’t mind horrid beer. However, it’s also low-key establishment that isn’t obnoxious like so many of the bars in the Iowa City area. It’s kind of like the Deadwood’s slightly brighter (in luminosity that is), more billiards orientated cousin.

Yes, obviously a bar named “Que” has pool tables. In fact the back half of the place is a billiard’s room that contains about a dozen or so tables. And when Dan visits, this is the area we usually hangout at first. Numerous round tables surround the room’s perimeter, and you have a nice view to watch others play (even though it’s only 2 dollars to play for an hour on weeknights, Dan is too cheap to play, and besides we’re more concerned with drinking, catching up, and, in good-humor, ridiculing the pool players who suck, because obviously, we’re sooo much better—at least, that’s what our drunk minds tell us).

If we get bored with the poolroom, we make our way into The Que Bar’s middle section (the front section is just an area of booths and wood walls in where the waiters don’t visit as often as the back and mid-areas). The walls in the mid-section are made from dark bricks that resemble a dank crumbling factory, and there is a staircase that leads to a locked door (an office or a brothel is my guess of what is behind that door). Often, I have found myself sitting on these steps during the bar’s busier times, nursing a beer, and feeling like I’m more at house party than an actual bar. How rare and wonderful and comfortable that feeling is. This middle area also houses 2 big screen televisions (both of which need to be serviced because everything on the screen a has psychedelic rainbow glow), a bunch of small round tables, and the modest bar with a sign behind it that warns “no politicians allowed on premises.”

And really, unlike the Deadwood, this isn’t a place in where it seems right to speak politics—kind of akin to speaking about your sex life at a 2 year-old’s birthday party. The Que Bar is laid back, really laid back, yet the usual crowd lacks pretension.

Talk sports. Talk about life events. Talk a little about the local news. Talk school stuff. Talk movies and pop culture and friends and family and anything else that doesn’t require deep ponderous conversations. There’s no outright reason that I could point to in why this atmosphere exists at The Que Bar. Hell, it could all come back to the simple fact that a sign behind the bar lays the ground rules. But maybe this is the reason why Dan and I always go there.