Photograph by Thomas Crone
Plenty of bars offer a night, even two, of weekly karaoke. But it’s the rare tavern that gives its patrons four chances a week to belt out songs in front of friends and strangers. The Office, one of a slew of neighborhood-style taverns on St. Charles Rock Road, is just such a place.
What the bar also offers is an every-other-weekend meat shoot, with a fun, homemade operation that draws between 12 to 15 shooters on most weekends. This past Saturday, jammed as it was with festivals and fairs throughout the area, might not have seemed the exact time to ring up a maiden visit to an indoor meat shoot, but that’s just what we did, heading off to The Office in North County for a quick education in how things are done at this particular spot.
For starters, it’s Shari Poteet, The Office’s owner for the past five-plus years, who is involved in the nuts-and-bolts of the organization. True, someone else works the floor, selling rounds, but it’s Poteet who stands in front of the audience, calling out names and judging the rounds, which she does with near-microscopic attention. She’s the one who runs out to Sam’s Club to buy the meat prizes, and she’s the person who okays the free spread set out for shooters, and anyone else who happens to wander in. On Saturday, that meant a steam tray full of chicken, with sides of potato salad and coleslaw and chips.
“We like to give back to the customers,” Poteet says.
The well-fed Saturday shooters were competing in six rounds, for these sequential prizes: ham steaks, chicken breasts, money, bacon and sausage, pork steaks and, the most desired win, t-bone steaks. Each shooter buys a target for $1; you can buy up to two targets for the round. Sitting 22 feet away from the target, competitors pull from a handful of old-school BB rifles, which sit out on the table next to the shooting station. The small target is then attached to a roughly-two-by-two foot wooden frame, with its background painted black. It’s lit by a pair of clips lights and is backed by a carpet, which hangs over the front window to protect the glass from, um, less skilled marksmen.
Unlike other operators in town, who might use some type of safety funnel or gangway, this one just takes place right in the front of the tavern, so that newcomers coming in during the competition walk into an interesting scene when the game’s taking place, the gun drawn in your vague direction. Most of those shooting will wind up fanning out at the front of the house, close to both the action and the buffet. And not a few of them end up with their own six-for-$10 beer buckets, too. Though the first round starts at 2 p.m., there’s nothing stopping folks from dropping by as the afternoon ticks along, and a few do.
Like me.
It wouldn’t have been proper participatory journalism to just sit, snack on potato salad, talk to a few customers and roll out into a near-perfect spring afternoon. And it was the third round, the money round, that caught my attention in particular, as I’ve not eaten a hoofed animal in nearly 25 years. And money is a prize that anybody can use and everyone wants to compete to win. For that round, it was a $2 buy-in, with my assumption that half the pot went to the winning shooter.
With my money set down on the bar, I watched the others intently. There was Otto, Mark, Stick, John, Mary, Mike 1, Drew, Mike 2, a couple of others. In trying to get a sense of what was what, I watched each study the target, taking their time and never rushing. With six rounds to play and my arriving at the tail end of the first round, I could sense that time wasn’t a big deal here; the game ticked along as it was supposed to, and if you’re looking to kill time, just direct your attention to the Cardinals game, listen to the country music on the jukebox or otherwise settle yourself in with neighborly small-talk.
But as much time as I invested in getting the nuances right, I must’ve needed double that, as I wound up with the predictable case of beginner’s nerves as I sat down for for my attempt at the money round. Poteet, who first seemed to be a little taken aback by a reporter showing up to the meat shoot, wound up being an advocate and super helpful. She pointed to the target itself, just a little wisp of a thing, and noted that the bull’s eye wasn’t exactly in the middle; it’s a just a touch south. The second, more surprising bit of info, was that the money round didn’t mean shooting at the printed target. Instead, you’re to shoot at the blank, back of the page, with no visual guide to help you. Not that it would’ve helped all that much.
Complicating matters was the fact that I hadn’t picked up a BB gun in about 30 years. The space between the shooting table and the bull’s eye was looking plenty far away as I pumped the rifle three times, just as everyone else did. But I didn’t pull the safety back, to send the BB through to the chamber. So my first “shot” was an empty click. Poteet scrambled out from behind her lectern to pull the BB for me, which I appreciated, even as I suddenly realized how close the three guys behind me were: real close. They were saying something, but I couldn’t make out what it was, as I readied, aimed and fired; maybe it was some kind of advice, which didn’t sink in, or they were calling me an idiot, which would’ve been correct. As it turned out, I missed the target on two of the three shots and barely caught the edge on one, without the target being put into any danger.
I grabbed up my barely-scratched target and sat back down with my Busch Bavarian, to watch the rest of the round. If memory serves correct, it was Jerry who took the small cash win and he treated it like someone who’d won before, carefully laying the stack on the table; my tactic would’ve been making it rain on the bar, with some type of celebratory dance, but luck wasn’t shining on me. Maybe for the best.
Poteet says that most of her customers are regulars, drawn from the immediate towns of Breckenridge Hills, St. John, St. Ann, etc. There’s a first-name basis happening, for the most part. Maybe because it’s a pretty big bar, you don’t feel as if you’ve crashed a private party if you’re new.
And if you’ve never been to The Office, there’s no time like a meat shoot Saturday. And while there’s usually an every-other calendar date, this month, the second meat shoot falls on the 30th, due to some benefits in-between. If you’re one of those country kids, who spent entire summers shooting cans off of fence-posts, you might walk away with some meat. If you’re not, bring a couple dollars and a sense of humor.
“We’re just a little neighborhood bar, trying to say in business,” Poteet says.
With four nights a week of karaoke and two meat shoots a month, what’s not to like?
CAVEAT #1: While The Office’s meat shoot is an in-house type, M&T Meat Shoots has events all over town, with a heavy emphasis on the South Side. The business’ website (mtshoots.com) highlights upcoming dates, which includes an afternoon at The Filling Station in Benton Park, this Saturday, June 9.
CAVEAT #2: Based on a couple stops at various clubs up-and-down the street, we’re going to feature a “Bars of St. Charles Rock Road” blog next Monday. Check back.
