Winnipeggers say goodbye to an old Pal

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This article was published 01/01/2016 (3861 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There have been some constants in the Palomino Club’s 27 years: its owner Cary Paul, the Kosher Cowboy sign and a devoted group of regulars.

On the eve of Saturday’s giant farewell blow out, devoted club-goers gathered in beer-soaked herds to spend one last Friday night at the iconic bar.

Within minutes of its doors opening at 7 p.m., groups began pouring in, and it wasn’t about picking up a girl or guy for the night as the club has been known for.

It was about having one last drink at the place that has been part of their lives for so many years.

Some were men and women in their 40s and 50s reliving the days when they spent every Saturday at the Pal. Others were attending the Pal for the second night in a row, with plans to return Saturday in an attempt to soak up every last moment of their beloved bar.

Its doors will close forever after Saturday’s bash, soon to be bulldozed and replaced by a 60-unit condo building.

“I’ve been coming here since I turned 18,” was the oft-repeated answer when a patron was asked how many years they have been coming to the Portage Avenue mainstay. The early crowd Friday night skewed older, but Paul said the past two weeks have been an ageless crowd, from those who just turned 18 to those who have been coming to the bar for decades.

From the original hardwood floors, now blackened from years of country music fans’ boot scootin’ boogie-ing on them to the infamous Kosher Cowboy sign and one very inappropriate neon pig sign, much of the inside of the Pal has remained the same. It’s those two pigs engaging in an illicit act that had a “god-fearing” musical act from Nashville refuse to perform until they turned off the sign, according to Paul.

“It’s never changed, it has never themed itself to the flavour of the day. So many people have met here, and it has touched so many people’s lives,” Paul said. “The only thing that’s really changed is the paint.”

It’s that sense of familiarity that kept Neil Sullivan coming back time and time again. Sullivan, now 46, said his bond with the bar was solidified in one wild night in his 20s, which ended in a cake fight in the middle of the bar. Instead of kicking him out, the manager, Jacquie Neufeld, helped him out, cleaned him up and got him home safe.

“Jacquie was really the second face of the bar,” he said of the beloved former manager who died earlier this year. “The Pal really is a timeless place; it a mix of people, it’s a nice and comfortable environment without a sense of pretension.”

The other face of the Pal is its owner Paul, who is immortalized on the back section of the club nicknamed the Kosher Section after the wooden sign bearing a caricature of Paul with the words, The Kosher Cowboy. A nickname Paul, who is Jewish, earned while training as a steer wrestler. Within the first year of the Pal’s opening, the sign was mounted and the Kosher Section was created. The horseshoe-shaped tables were a frequent request for bachelorette parties and other events.

Friday’s party was about the music, a chance for any band who came to jam for one last time. A fitting final Friday for a country bar that has hosted famous country musical acts such as Faith Hill in her early years.

Frequent patron Eryn Garriock describes the Pal as the first bar you go to when you turn 18 and the one you keep returning to. She said she has been coming to the bar for 20 years, knowing every time she walks through its doors she is going to have a great time.

“It’s going to be sad to say goodbye,” she said. “It’s going to be a sad day, saying goodbye to such an iconic place in Winnipeg.”

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca