Palmer’s Bar goes out with a blast of horns, piano and tears

There was a beautiful, New Orleans-style funeral procession with a brass band and a touching reunion by a local piano legend and his famous son. Then came an ugly verbal spat between patrons and bartenders, who threw ice and water at the customers yelling at them to get out.

And that was all just in the last hour of the 11-hour closing bash at Palmer’s Bar in Minneapolis.

Sunday was the final day in the storied West Bank dive bar’s 119-year history. Come Monday, the famous Palmer’s slogan, “Sorry, we’re open,” will become false advertising.

Palmer’s staff members really meant it, though, when they put out flyers for the closing-day party that read, “You’ve all been 86’d!” This is the bar, after all, that kept a wall of Post-it Notes naming all the unruly patrons who had to be cut-off (aka “86’d”).

Thirty music acts performed from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at the eclectic, scruffy venue, which Esquire magazine once named one of the best bars in America. The first band on, bluesy acoustic pickers the Front Porch Swingin’ Liquor Pigs, had played a Thursday happy-hour gig there since 2009.

“Score one for durability,” co-lead Liquor Pig Randy Webb quipped of both his band’s and the bar’s longevity.

Other musicians who performed throughout the day on the large, ragtag patio outside Palmer’s ranged from vintage twangers the Cactus Blossoms and Jack Klatt to hedonistic noisemakers the Sex Rays and Whiskey Rock ‘n’ Roll Club to the cover band Mind Out of Time, a tribute to Bob Dylan.

“A lot of musicians cut their teeth here, and a lot just loved to hang out here,” said Klatt, who later performed one of Koerner’s tunes, “Nightbird Eyes.”

A line to get in had formed outside Palmer’s by early afternoon. Hundreds of people were still standing on the sidewalk hoping to at least hear the music as of 9 p.m., when the Brass Messengers began the funeral procession toward the inside of the bar for the last act of the day: veteran jazz and R&B piano man James Samuel “Cornbread” Harris Jr.

Harris, 98, had performed at Palmer’s off and on since 2008 and maintained a Sunday afternoon gig in recent years billed as “Church of Cornbread.” His final “church” session was blessed with a guest appearance by Harris’ son, Jimmy Jam. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame producer sat down by his dad’s side and watched him play before taking over his drummer’s kit near show’s end.

Watching the performers throughout the day while he also hobnobbed with other longtime Palmer’s patrons, Redboi McBride of Minneapolis said, “I think this is what it feels like when you live in a small town and the local church has been condemned.”

McBride and many other regulars were annoyed that so many newcomers had been showing up and crowding the bar in recent days. They called them “funeral crashers.”

Longtime proprietors of the similarly beloved Grumpy’s Bar in northeast Minneapolis, the Dwyers tried to pull Palmer’s out of a deep financial hole left by a prior business partner. Missing money and several different addictions were involved.

“It wasn’t one person’s fault,” Dwyer clarified Sunday as she helped the staff manically at work behind the bar.

“It’s not exactly an awesome day,” she added, but expressed awe and gratitude for the staffers and musicians who stuck with the bar till the end. “That’s one of the few bright spots.”

With bars across America hurting as more young adults turn away from alcohol — and the costs of upkeeping the bar and its historic building going up — the Dwyers had to cut their losses and seek a buyer. The only good offer that came forward was from the neighboring Dar Al-Hijrah mosque to turn it into a community center.

Palmer’s became one in a growing list of other bars in the West Bank/Cedar-Riverside neighborhood bought up by organizations within the Somali and East African community that now lives nearby, and which generally abstains from alcohol. Other bars on the 86’d list include the Triple Rock, Viking Bar, 400 Bar, Nomad World Pub (aka 5 Corners Saloon) and Corner Bar.

“It’s very sad we’re losing this spot, but we aren’t losing everything,” said Amity Dimock, a co-founder of the nearby Hard Times Café.

Dimock walked around Sunday with a clipboard trying to get other longtime patrons to sign up for something called the Palm Club — an organization that will regularly host Palmer’s-style events at the Red Sea restaurant a block away, or other nearby event spaces if need be.

“This place and these people mean too much to let them go completely,” Dimock said.

Z’Claire Swenson of the band Wet Denim, who has worked at Palmer’s for 14 years as both a bartender and a musician, said she got a hug from another member of the transgender community for “making them feel safe” there.

“It’s a big deal being accepted at a bar like this,” Swenson said, noting that it “might not be mistaken for a gay bar… but there was something about this place that disarmed people.”

“There just aren’t many places of this ilk left for musicians, the cool, old, little neighborhood bar you can pack and have a blast in,” Collins said.

Palmer’s felt as packed as ever at night’s end as the Brass Messengers joined Harris to kick off the day’s final tunes, including Cornbread’s own recently penned plea for peace, “Put the World Back Together.” When the clock struck the scheduled closing time of 10 p.m., though, some of the Palmer’s bartenders proved anything but peaceful. And thus began the deluge of ice and water and expletives.

As Harris’ set ended, one of the staffers got on a microphone and announced that the piano player’s Sunday gigs would resume next weekend at another historic bar two miles south of Palmer’s along East Lake Street in Minneapolis, the Schooner Tavern.

“And they won’t throw ice cubes at you there,” the bartender cheerfully added.