They've Got Spirit

Opinionated Fishtowners, smiley-face pony buckets and possible ghosts abound at Luke's.

by Andrew Thompson

Andrew Thompson

[ watering hole ]

The patrons of Luke’s Bar swear Luke is in the bar. Which is unusual, because Luke is dead. But they swear it. The rattling of the radiator, the invisibly played piano and some vague anecdote about the mysterious appearance of a golf ball are all evidence to the patrons of this Fishtown drinkery that deceased owner Luke McGahan is paying a spectral visit for the bar’s 40th anniversary, which officially hit in November.

Four decades serving drinks earns Luke’s the title of Oldest Bar in Fishtown with the Same Owner, at least according to proprietor Terry Burns-McGahan, Luke’s widow. But over that time, the bar has employed neither expansionist tactics nor marketing campaigns — nothing at all to lure in more customers.

It doesn’t appear that the patronage has changed much, either. The bar today, while hosting a different coterie than it did 40 years ago, still hosts little more than a coterie on most nights: a group of about a dozen Fishtowners — mostly women, with a smattering of men — all willing to chat with whoever comes through the door.

On the night of the 40th anniversary, there isn’t much of a shindig, save for those intimations of Luke’s spirit flying around — celebration enough for Burns-McGahan and the regulars who knew Luke before he succumbed to a spinal stroke in early 2008. It’s quiet — nothing like the scene on Halloween, when the karaoke machine blasted Hank Williams tunes, customers dug into foil trays of meat and ladies danced beneath a wall overhang featuring framed pictures of Luke decked out in drag.
Those photos might be the only visible evidence supporting my friend’s anecdotal claim that Luke’s is the only gay-friendly bar in Fishtown. But when asked about it, Burns-McGahan shrugs off the label — not because her bar isn’t gay-friendly, but because she doesn’t seem to know what to do with the description. “I dunno,” says the owner, pointing to her left to a bar regular. “She’s bi.”

Regardless, the folks who frequent Luke’s consider it an authentic Fishtown bar, but before I can get any of them to explain why, the conversation tumbles into the inevitable microanalysis of the neighborhood’s demarcations. One regular tells me he “can’t fucking stand Fishtowners.” I ask him where he hails from, and he says he lives three blocks away and loves his neighborhood.

Most here feel the bar is true to their lives. “I went into Johnny Brenda’s, and not a single person talked to me,” says Joyce Brown, another regular. I tried to explain to her why that may have been the case, but she wasn’t having it. For the folks at Luke’s, bars aren’t venues for wide-spanning craft beer selections and live music. They’re supposed to be small and dark, places where you drink 7-ounce beers out of buckets with smiley faces printed on them. And when you’re done with one bucket, you order another.

(andrew.thompson@citypaper.net)

Luke's Bar | 2434 Cedar St., 215-634-2106