Dive Bar – Memphis Flyer

Something about the old Printer’s Alley bar piqued Louis Connelly’s interest.

“There’s just something about bars that are sort of old and run-down and dilapidated,” he says. “And the other people that are there are just looking to have a good time and not taking themselves too seriously.”

“You need some characters there for sure,” he adds.

Printer’s Alley was “a fun place to end the night. When every other place was closed, Printer’s Alley was open.”

Connelly is now owner of Louis Connelly’s Bar for Fun Times & Friendship, which opened February 3rd in the space once occupied by Printer’s Alley at 322 South Cleveland.

When he moved from Brunswick, Maine, to Memphis, Connelly didn’t dream he’d open a nightspot. “At that time in my life I didn’t really have enough money to even consider opening a restaurant or bar or anything.”

He used to stop in Printer’s Alley every couple of months. “I ended up there one, two o’clock in the morning. Nothing particularly bad happened while I was there. I guess it went through a series of different owners. I moved here in 2013. From when I moved here and until it got shut down, I got along with various bartenders and owners.”

He knew Printer’s Alley didn’t have the greatest reputation. “Not a good local spot to hang out,” he says. “Smoking inside, for one, turned off a lot of people. I knew that drug use was sort of rampant. I just knew it was a little bit of a shady bar. Overall, my experiences were positive.

“Now that I own it, people are telling me all sorts of stuff. Picking up ladies of the night or whatever.”

Connelly, who works at Evolve Bank & Trust, would “look at different websites that post businesses for sale.”

When he discovered Printer’s Alley, he called up the renter and went by the place. “It was pretty dilapidated as you can imagine.”

But it fit his budget. “I liked the history of the building and the spot. I don’t live in Central Gardens. I live in Cooper-Young. I always thought people in Central Gardens don’t really have a local spot to hang out.”

He signed the lease a year ago. “I got a guy in there and we drew up some plans and he started working on it.”

Connelly hired manager Mickey Blancq, a Memphis restaurant veteran.

And he hired Dustin Brantley to “help with the decor and the vibe. To get that right. He’s really punk rock.”

Brantley has been working in production design and set decoration in Memphis for the past 10 years.

He’s not a drinker, but “I’ve always been a big fan of dive bars and that culture and that feel,” says Brantley.

Searching in antique stores, private collections, and other sources, Brantley says he brought in a lot of advertising from the ’70s and ’80s, and historical pieces dating back to the ’60s.

He wanted “to honor the history” of the old Printer’s Alley space.

“Whether you’re a 70-year-old biker or a 21-year-old Midtown artist, I wanted people to feel like they belong here,” Brantley adds. “So, I just took that and ran with it. I wanted it to feel familiar in a way that all good dive bars should feel.”

Connelly kept some Printer’s Alley pieces, including a mural. As for renovations, Connelly says, “We took out the hallway that was next to the bathrooms to expand the kitchen. And then we covered up the brick wall that had a chalk wall on it on the other side with an actual wall to make it easier to hang stuff up like TVs.”

They put in a new bar. “That [old] bar was not worth salvaging. It was completely busted up. And we moved the bar from one side of the room to the other. It’s much more functional over there.”

He considered keeping the old epoxy bar top, which had pennies and old photos of Printer’s Alley customers attached to it, but, he says, “Hey, we’re going for a new bar. It doesn’t really make sense to keep pictures of people I don’t know.”

Connelly created a “full kitchen” by adding new equipment, including a flat top grill, a charbroiler, and a new stove. “They literally only had one kitchen stove. Like one that you’d have at your house.”

Blancq, Connelly, and chef Juan Amaro collaborated on the menu, which includes nachos, Philly cheesesteaks, and smashburgers. “Really solid bar food,” Blancq says. “Nothing too fancy. Just making bar food right.”

They had a great response at their grand opening February 3rd. “I think our whole vibe is different enough that we’re going to attract a new clientele,” Connelly says.

Louis Connelly’s Bar will close at 3 a.m. “We do want to stay open late.”

Not too many local bars are open late these days, he says. “The pandemic killed a lot of them. P&H is gone.”

“This is new,” Connelly continues, “but we want to make it feel like it’s been there for a while. It will take a lot more time to really get that feel. I think we’re starting from a really good place.”

It was so like a dream. “We were in the old house. You were there, and you, and you…And we saw this door we’d never seen, so we opened it — and found a whole other room, that had been there under our noses all these years!”

Except it wasn’t a dream. It was only yesterday and I was getting a tour from Laurel Cannito, who, along with Chuck ‘Vicious’ Wenzler, took over the Lamplighter Lounge last year after longtime owner Ann Bradley decided to retire. Looking a little mischievous, Cannito motioned me to a door I’d never seen and threw it open. And there it was: the Secret Room.

“It’s like Harry Potter, isn’t it?” she said, looking rather proud of her bar and the team that helps her run the place. “The room’s always been here, but we haven’t always been connected. This used to be a TV repair shop in the 60s. And then it was a bookstore. And then it was a ball point pen repair place. We’ve always said, ‘Oh, wouldn’t that be neat to turn into a venue space?’ So, we recently acquired it. We have great landlords. They worked with us to help get it attached and everything. Then we did a lot of the construction work after we put it onto our lease.”

Justin Fox Burks

Thomas pours a PBR

The Lamplighter Lounge, of course, is the long-adored dive on Madison Avenue that some say is the the oldest bar in Memphis. Despite the smallish space of the original lounge, the new owners removed the pool table last year and began hosting bands with increasing frequency. The vibe was always great, but it could get a bit cramped.

Now, the Secret Room more than doubles the size of the place. Entering from a door on the south end of the bar, you see an unassuming functional space that (gasp!) even includes a green room for the bands. What’s more, the new room marks the return of the beloved pool table. Cannito is happy to have it back. “Miss Anne sold the pool table before we bought the place, so we didn’t choose to get rid of it,” she says, now visibly relieved at its return.

In addition to some few finishing touches like stringing lights, she’ll outfit the new room with more bar-like amenities soon. “The original jukebox is still here by the bar, and we got that working again. But there on left is a new old jukebox that we are gonna get working for the Secret Room. Yep, double jukebox. You just need a jukebox in every room. That door over there is the customer door. And this door behind the bar is gonna be split in half and have a bar top on it so we can sling drinks from there.”

Aside from such touches, the Secret Room will remain fairly sparse. “It’ll be a little bare bones. It’ll be not so much a raw space, but a malleable space. I like performance art. I would love to have more of that, like performance art and puppetry and dancing, or even the aerial stuff that’s been around. Next month, we’re doing a pop-up boutique every Sunday, because me and some friends have a bunch of clothes that we’re trying to get out into the world. Stuff that’s really nice, but it’s just not our style anymore. And then, I have some friends in Asheville who are part of a professional circus. I could get them here at some point. It just expands our ability to help encourage creativity around town, give it a space,” says Cannito.

And of course there will be music. “We already have music of all kinds, like the old time string band, soul bands, rock bands of all kinds, and rap and DJs and 80s nights. It’s so nice. I want this to be the kind of space where every kind of music can find a place. And having the Secret Room is going to be really good for that. I think it’ll bring even more types of music and even more bands. Because not everybody wants to set up in the small room and just play for people who drink. It’ll help a lot with the intentionality of it.”

To that end, the Secret Room will be having its inaugural show this weekend, Saturday, July 13th, featuring some of Midtown’s favorites: Louise Page, Faux Killas and Rosey. Remarked Cannito of the latter band, “They’re so, so good. When they finish a song, there’s just a silence as the audience tries to process what they’ve just heard.”
Discover the Secret Room this Saturday, to see and hear it for yourself.

The Secret Room at the Lamplighter: Grand Opening On Saturday