Taproot reconstruction and beer

Sitting still and reflecting has always been hard for me - I'd rather be working. This Memorial Day, the friends I'm staying with dove into yardwork, but there's not much I could do to help. So, after cleaning the kitchen, I went with a couple friends who were headed out to Taproot Cafe. That is, we headed to where they will be - they're moving into the old Fly By Night Club building on Spenard. In a town small enough that "you don't lose your partner, you lose your turn" is a humorous saying, the same can be said of restaurants, theaters, and other businesses. There's not much room for new construction on a peninsula!

I haven't gone to Taproot often - they're on the hippie end of the spectrum, having started as a juice bar and evolved into an organic / local / sustainable restaurant. That said, they have good food, so it's a great place to take picky eaters (the vegetarian / local sourced variety, not the temper-tantrum variety), and they do tons of live music, including under-21 jams that give the younger musicians in town a chance to shine. Good jazz and bluegrass, and local-brewed beer and mead to wash it down, what's not to like?

So they put out a call for help to their community for remodeling and cleaning the new place, and we made a fun afternoon of the work. Only downside - the crew was providing all the beer you could drink, free, and I don't like beer. If the parking stripes are slightly crooked, I was wilting in the heat, not drunk, alright? That came later, when the owner came up and told us we had free open tab that night for helping out so much. So we ended up in the back of the old cafe for closing night. With an open tab, our server decided that my dislike of hops was a challenge, and brought out samples of darned near every blonde or ale on tap, to see if he could find one I like. The Midnight Sun Brewing Co's Panty Peeler Tripel was actually not bad - from someone who doesn't like beer, it wasn't great enough to be chosen over the Celestial Meads Original Sin and the Ring Of Fire Meadery's Raspberry Melomel, but paired with a cheeseburger and sweet potato fries, it went down very nicely.

Now if only I could figure out where in all that happy time with good work, good food, good friends, good music, and lots of water to sober up supplemented with coffee to fight exhaustion I twisted my ankle...