After tonight, there will be no El Bar. After tonight, no mas. El Bar may have been smokier than a Czechoslovakian brothel, and the patrons were a little rough around the edges, but you can’t deny the charm of a place where the owner would drunkenly drag all of the furniture into the parking lot, pour gasoline on it, and light it on fire.

El Bar was to Whynatte what a placenta is to an unborn dingo. It fed us, it nurtured us, it sustained us. Although the Whynatte was created in Santa Cruz, it’s safe to say that El Bar was where it finally found its stride.

We used to throw a weekly Thursday night hip-hop party at El Bar, and we’d serve up Whynattes by the urn-full. There were many late-to-work Fridays, many new friends made, a fair amount of trading money for goods and services, and a return to a youthful innocence that will be missed.

In the words of Boyz to Men:

I thought we’d get to see forever
But forever’s gone away
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday

Here are some of the old photos from El Bar, and some of the lessons that this establishment tought us:

El Bar permitted two men and an urn to have a common dream:

El Bar didn’t discriminate based on age or creed:

El Bar would let old friends come together without pretense:

El Bar never told you that you were too drunk to get behind the wheel:

El Bar encouraged you to let your inner beauty shine:

El Bar set the stage for the wearing of gloves indoors:

El Bar never told you how to drink your Whynatte:

El Bar let a man in a red jacket be nothing more than a man in a red jacket:

El Bar is where Johnny Latte got the nickname Johnny Latte:

El Bar would allow those with both real and fake ID’s to come together:

El Bar never told you to wear your hair with a perm:

El Bar never told Dinco that he couldn’t hit on every single woman in the bar (actually they did, but anyway):

El Bar encouraged a bartender to proudly wear a Whynatte shirt:

El Bar asked you to follow your heart and your dreams, to come as you are, to pour gasoline on the furniture if you want to pour gasoline on the furniture, to move to LA to pursue acting, to drop a shot of Jager into a scalding hot latte, to drink with your parents, to braise brisket if you feel like braising a brisket, and above all else to never let anyone else define the meaning of your life.

Thank you El Bar.