Martini Mondays

Christopher and I just got home from Martini Monday at The Times Bar & Cafe in Minneapolis. We don't usually go out on Monday nights. We go for dinner on the occasional Tuesdays or Wednesdays because you can often get half-price wine, but simply going out for drinks on a Monday is pretty rare. We had a good reason, though--a good friend of ours is moving to San Francisco later this week, and this was our last chance to go to see Erin Schwab perform.

We've gone to see Erin Schwab when she's been at Jitters (which is in the basement of The Times) on Friday nights, but hadn't gone to see her on a Monday. On the Friday nights, the place is usually packed. Whenever we've had more than just a couple of people we've made reservations for a table. Jitters is loud and there's way too much going on, but Erin (I'm thinking first names are okay for this...) is great with Jay Fuchs and Chris Micek backing her up. Very high energy, kind of campy and frequently a tad raunchy. There's a full "martini" menu, and it's always lots of fun.

Every Friday, Erin talks about how much fun Martini Mondays are, with Martini Punchcards (buy 5 get 1 free--not necessarily all in one night) and all with just herself and Jay on the keyboard. But when we walked in we were pretty surprised: instead of a packed house with no seating, there were only a few people, and plenty of seats. Erin commented that she thought she lost some of her target audience to Kathy Griffin being in concert tonight, but we were more than happy to have her mostly to ourselves. (Most of the evening there were about 15 people paying attention.)

I had emailed to say that we were bringing a big fan for her last Erin night before she moves, and when Erin started her show she immediately sussed out which group we were. From that point on, it seemed like the evening revolved around our table. She asked for--and performed--all of our requests. She came over and chatted during her break. And when we were leaving, she wished us well and then led the whole crowd in a quick chorus of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" as we walked past the window.

We're looking forward to going back to Jitters again, and of course now we have our Martini Punchcards to fill in, but I suspect none of our evenings will match tonight's personalized attention. Very cool. 

If you're in the Twin Cities on a Friday or Monday, I highly recommend stopping by to see her perform. When you make a request, feel free to tell her I sent you. (She won't know who you're talking about, but if enough people do it, it would be kinda freaky and fun...)