THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610270384
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 142 lines
THERE WAS A TIME when a traffic jam in the Deep Creek section of Chesapeake was akin to pigs flying; a time when you called your uncle in California to tell him that Deep Creek got its first traffic light - and your uncle didn't believe you.
But there was always one linchpin here that seemed securely grounded despite all the change. Nothing, locals thought, could take away their nondescript, smoke-filled, honky-tonk hustlin' Bar-B-Q Barn.
That was, until early Sunday morning.
The Barn isn't the most attractive place in the world. And after a long night of drinking, smoking and socializing, it smells like a long night of drinking, smoking and socializing. The music as well as the clientele are loud. And if you're looking to sit quietly and sip chablis while munching strands of watercress, fahgetaboutit.
This brick building next to the Dismal Swamp Canal was far more than just a local watering hole. It was a place to meet your friends and make new friends; a place where the beer provided the gumption to karaoke a Johnny Paycheck tune; a place where people memorized the numbered selections on the jukebox; and a place where the locals say the bartenders and waitresses rank second to none in their generosity and caring. The service, let alone the barbecue, ain't half bad neither.
But sometime after 2:30 Sunday morning, it ended. The Bar-B-Q Barn shut down.
The closing wasn't advertised. Nothing on the outside of the Barn on Saturday night indicated that this was the end. The posters on the doors advertised only that night's annual Halloween party.
But everyone who filled the parking lot, everyone who was buying the last drops of the whiskey (the first to go) or beer (after running out, the bar staff bought cases at the local 7-Eleven) knew that this was it. Word of the closing had spread solely by word of mouth.
The owner, William ``Herbie'' Dorsett Jr., locked up the bar early Sunday morning after a boisterous farewell. He is retiring, he said, after getting an offer from the San Antonio Sam's chain to rent the building through a 15-year lease. San Antonio Sam's will do the renovations Dorsett had planned, and when it reopens, this low and wide building will have its smoky bar separated from the restaurant to meet the smoke-free dining demands of the new families coming in droves to Deep Creek.
``This other place is going to do the same thing I was going to do,'' Dorsett said. ``And when you get that opportunity, take it. But I'm gonna miss it, that's for sure.''
Locals were less enthusiastic. Some griped that it would never be the same, that they would never return. One women cried, calling the place a second home. But most were saddened that, like almost everything else here, the Bar-B-Q Barn was a victim of progress; that yet another piece of original Deep Creek was gone.
``We lost the old Mercantile Store but we kept on saying that we still had the Bar-B-Q Barn,'' said Scott Wall, 29, as he sipped a Corona beside a ransacked popcorn machine late Saturday night at the Barn. ``And now the Bar-B-Q Barn is gone and there's nothing else.
``It's very symbolic,'' he added. ``What's left in Deep Creek? Nothing. There are houses in the back yard where we used to hunt. We used to walk down the road with our guns when we were squirrel hunting. If you were to do something like that now, it'd be a major crime.
``It's like the death of the community,'' he added, ``and, like, this is the beginning of the end.''
The building originally housed a Texaco gas station years ago. You can stand outside under the narrow brick awning close to U.S. Route 17 and see the outlines where the old gravity-fed gas tanks once pumped. The building was one room then, with a wood floor and a pot-bellied stove around which, according to Dorsett's father, many beers were killed. Before that, it was a barbecue joint called Barco's. Then Motley's. Then the Bar-B-Q Barn.
It is the only bar in Deep Creek, a village with a history of late-night bacchanalia going back to the days when the cypress cutters and watermen came out of the Great Dismal Swamp or through the canal to drink their wages. Local residents formed a militia called the Dismal Swamp Rangers not only to protect the town but to keep the peace between various revelers.
On this Saturday night, the local band Hole Shot played. It was fitting that several members of the band were once members of The Wranglers, the house band for the Bar-B-Q Barn from about 1984 to 1992 when the place burned down yet again.
``There ought to be a neon sign on the outside of the Bar-B-Q Barn that says: ON FIRE or NOT ON FIRE,'' said a member of the band.
Dorsett never installed a sprinkler system since the 1992 fire, and no band had ever played here again - until Saturday, when Dorsett threw caution to the wind.
``What are they going to do,'' asked one woman, ``shut him down?''
Two of the band members met their wives here. Other remember being warned about the place when they first came here in their teens.
``A lot of fights,'' said Ivey Stowe. ``Rough place to go.''
The Barn lived up to that reputation on Saturday night and Sunday morning with at least two fights, the first beginning when a man dressed as Frankenstein got into it with the yelling occupants of a minivan. The fight ended up in the parking lot of the local 7-Eleven, where people said a gun was drawn but no shots were fired. It was the talk of the bar, for a bit.
Scott Nester began his evening dressed as the Bar-B-Q Barn, with clown tears coming from both eyes. The model Barn, hanging around Nester's shoulders like a sandwich board, was a masterpiece, replete with the side fencing and cars. But as the crowd grew so thick that some women held lit cigarettes above their heads, the 32-year-old Nester ditched the outfit, fearing that - like the real Barn - it would be ruined.
``The Navy transferred me out here in December of 1992,'' he said. ``I came up here, you know, looking for a place to call home and it's just been fantastic. If you ever had to move, you'd never have to rent a U-Haul if you knew people at the Bar-B-Q Barn. People with pickup trucks would help you, and if no one would, the people here would find someone for you.
``People here don't care where you come from or what you do,'' he added. ``You come in here and you're family.''
Lisa Crowe, a Barn bartender for about 2 1/2 years, came with her husband on Saturday night to bid the place farewell. Her husband, Patrick, was on duty overseas in 1994 when Lisa's father died. The bartenders and waitresses took up a collection, cooked food and baby-sat for Lisa. Three months later, with Patrick back at sea, Lisa's brother died. Again, the waitresses and bartenders took up the collection and sent Lisa to California for the funeral.
``My wife never felt at home anywhere else,'' said Patrick. ``But when we came here, my wife said she never wanted to leave this place. It struck something in her heart that made her decide to make this home.''
The bar was still in full motion at 2 a.m. Sunday when Herbie Dorsett Jr. was asked to say a few words. And standing in the nearby doorway was Robert D. Preedy Jr., a longtime Deep Creek resident, who whispered that he hoped Dorsett wouldn't sing.
Preedy then told a story about calling his uncle years ago in California and telling him when Deep Creek got its first traffic light. The uncle, he said, didn't believe him.
Come this Thursday, when Deep Creek gets its second traffic light, Preedy may have to call again. He can also mention that the Bar-B-Q Barn closed down, but it's doubtful he'll be believed. ILLUSTRATION: [Color] Photos by STEVE EARLEY
The Virginian-Pilot
THe building housing the Bar-B-Q Barn, next to the Dismal Swamp
Canal in Chesapeake, was originally a gas station.
Lovie Page dances to the band during the annual Halloween costume
party that marked the closing night of the Bar-B-Q Barn Saturday.
Alicia Franklin, a Barn regular, wipes away tears of sadness after
closing time. She was dressed as a sailor for the costume contest.
STEVE EARLEY
The Virginian-Pilot
Owner ``Herbie'' Dorsett Jr. thanks his friends, customers and
employees during closing night at the Bar-B-Q Barn. by CNB