firstlook

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Whiskey Dix

by A.D. Amorosi

In a lounge-hound world, itís nice to see some roadhouse blood and guts. The biker-and-babes bar idea -- rockabilly tattooed boys, nu-metal heads and the cowboy-hat-wearing women who love them -- has spread to several spots in town: Blue Comet, Coyote Ugly and The Barbary. All have that old leather smell and battered bars with brass rails. So does Whiskey Dix, the new "genuine saloon" owned by Bill McKeever and Chris Mauer of Keswick Tavern fame. With bartenders doing the water-dance shuffle along the red cinder-block bar, it can be a pretty wild scene. "My parquet floor's already ruined from all the water," says McKeever.

"It's like Girls Gone Wild with their clothes on," says manager Denielle Pisa, who can't quite say the same of patrons who've lobbed their undergarments, from bras to boxers, onto the antlered deer and cattle heads that line Dix's walls. Dix is all about "letting loose." Like the times when the likes of porn star Jasmin St. Claire or Ice-T show up. Like the times (on occasional Wednesdays) when Dix brings in a mechanical bull for bikini bull-riding sessions.

McKeever wanted that rowdy good time, something in league with Manhattan's Hogs & Heifers or Red Rock West, when he opened Dix. He decorated with everything from a beat-up Interstate 20 sign to a 48-star flag, hung high, that once rested on his great-grandfather's coffin. "I sat down on a bucket right after I bought the place and thought of things that were the most personal to me, as well as to other people around me," he says. The taproom features hundreds of photos taken in the antique photo booth at the back of the tin-roofed stage.

Added to all of this is the sound of rock, classic and new. Neighboring the Electric Factory will certainly make Dix a great place for after-parties -- Poison already has plans to drop by -- and Bryan Dilworth and Jeff Thies are booking acts at Dix from Plastic Eaters to The Sideshow Prophets to Schoolly D. Throw in the specials on Jaeger shots and 16-ounce Pabst, and you have one hell of a mean party.

Whiskey Dix, 421 N. Seventh St., 215-923-2192.

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