Last Call is a podcast on the stories behind the places where everybody knows your name. It's a chance to soak up the ambiance of the world's greatest watering holes without leaving your home.
I’m Richard Crouse. I tended bar for seventeen years everywhere from hot spots to dive bars and I thought I had seen it all.
In my life behind bars I witnessed everything from first dates and marriage proposals to knife fights and a woman who brought a pet monkey in for a drink.
Nothing could surprise me.
Or so I thought.
Then I heard about how a lion who visited Harry’s New York Bar in Paris inspired Ernest Hemingway to write one of his greatest novels. And why there are century old chicken bones hanging above the beer-stained bar at McSorleys in New York City. And how Vincent Sardi refused to do business with the mob during Prohibition, so his famous Broadway Restaurant didn’t serve alcohol until the 21st amendment passed, six year after they first opened.
With the help of the Last Call radio players, music and interviews with cocktail detectives Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller, The Indiana Jones of Tiki, Jeff “Beachbum” Berry and Two and Two: McSorley's, My Dad, and Me author Rafe Bartholomew, I bring these stories, and many more, to life in my podcast Last Call. It’s fact folded in with a sprinkling of fiction, because, well, who doesn’t exaggerate after a few drinks?
So, open that bottle of wine or crack that beer and join me for an intoxicating guided tour of some of the strange stories from some of the world’s best boozers.
MAPLE SYRUP FOR YOUR EYES VOLUME THREE! CANADIAN SCI FI/FANTASY
I present a list of Canadian sci fi and fantasy films that will wrap their robotic arms around you in a warm Canadarm hug. I’ll tell you about a government manhunt to eliminate the rise of the machine consciousness, a war-ravaged totalitarian future, marginalized superheroes, a slimy bipedal creature and an animated, malevolent rock star.
31 Dec 2024
Wobble Noggin: “A hangover is just your body telling you that you’re an idiot.”
Anyone who has ever overindulged, has suffered the effects of the Brown Bottle Flu. The Crappe Diem. The Sunday Morning Coming Down… the hangover.
The dry mouth, the headache that feels like someone has torn the back of your head off with a shovel, the buckets of sweat. The irritability and nausea are symptoms of, as someone wiser than me once said, “your body telling you that you’re an idiot.”
On this episode we talk hangovers and wonder aloud if there is a cure, and if not, why not?
6 Feb 2024
Last Call with Richard Crouse: "You didn't go there for the bathrooms. You went there for the music."
Punk rock came roaring to life in a cramped, dingy bar on New York City’s Lower East Side called CBGB at 315 Bowery. More known for its filthy bathrooms than its drinks or food—legendary rock photographer Bob Gruen said with a laugh, “It was not a place you’d eat at.”—it is significant for its oversized influence on rock ‘n’ roll history. It’s the punk rock Cavern Club, a launching pad for new genres of music that still reverberate today. Punk scene likely would have happened without CBGB, but the grungy little club gave it a homebase.
In this podcast I’ll talk about the unruly story of an accidental cultural incubator born out of a unique moment in history where outsiders, like The Ramones, The Dead Boys, Talking Heads and Blonde, were brought together, celebrated and encouraged to be themselves.
Joining me to tell the story of CBGB are photographer Boib gruen, filmmaker, co-founder of “Punk” magazine and CBGBite Mary Harron, The ‘B’ Girls singer Lucasta Ross and The Punk Rock Museum co-founder Lisa Brownlee. Topping it off is an interview from the vault I did with CBGB’s owner Hilly Kristal in 1992
21 Mar 2022
Are You Home?
Feeling lonely? "Are You Home" is a virtual party and everyone is invited. Tune in, drop by, hear a few stories and spend some time with us.
21 Dec 2021
Last Call with Richard Crouse: The last great dive bar on Hollywood Boulevard
Situated next to the grand Pantages Theater, once the home of the Academy Awards and still one of the leading venues for live theater in Los Angeles, the Frolic Room’s store front is humble… but you can’t miss the extravagant neon sign.
Like all great bars it is an egalitarian place, a truly democratic space where, for the price of a drink, you are welcomed, whether you’re Charles Bukowski, Frank Sinatra or a just thirsty person off the street.
It’s a classic, welcoming place, the way it has always been. “If you changed the Frolic Room, I think it would ruin the business,” owner Robert Nunley says. “It works this way.”
15 Dec 2021
Last Call with Richard Crouse: "The Greatest Place in the History of the World."
Imagine a bar with an indoor lagoon. Now imagine that it rains, indoors every half hour. It’s not just a flight of fancy, it’s the Tonga Room, a classic restaurant and tiki bar in the Fairmont San Francisco hotel. Named after the South Pacific nation of Tonga, it is an eye-popping example of high-style Tiki that has been igniting the imaginations of customers for more than seventy five years.
Designed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s leading set director, it is the tropical paradise Anthony Bourdain called, “the greatest place in the history of the world."
Learn about the invention of Tiki, the California Gold Rush and the legendary Tonga Room!
7 Dec 2021
Last Call with Richard Crouse: The Clubhouse to the Stars
On this episode of “Last Call with Richard Crouse” we visit Sardi's, located at 234 West 44th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, in the Theatre District of Manhattan, New York City. It is Broadway’s most famous restaurant, and you may recognize it as the place where Kramer falsely accepts a Tony Award on "Seinfeld," or where Finn and Rachel met Patti LuPone in an episode of "Glee" or perhaps you know it as the place where Don Draper and Bobbie Barrett celebrated the sale of a television pilot on "Mad Men." The walls of celebrity caricatures are iconic and unmistakable.
Listen to the whole story of the "Clubhouse to the Stars" where the Tony Awards were born!
30 Nov 2021
Last Call with Richard Crouse: We Were Here Before You Were Born
On this episode of "Last Call with Richard Crouse" we visit McSorley’s Old Ale House on Seventh Street in New York’s East Village. McSorley’s may not be New York’s oldest bar, the Bridge Café (dates to 1794), Ear Inn (circa 1817) and Chumley's (established 1830s) all predate John McSorley’s business, but it is one of the most colourful. It’s sometimes hard to sort between the fact and fiction that swirls around the bar’s legend, but one thing is for sure, there is no arguing with their motto, “We were here before you were born.”
At the afterparty Rafe Bartholomew stops by to talk about the bar where Abraham Lincoln once had a beer and its history. Rafe's father Bart worked there for 45 years, the family lived upstairs for a time and on the weekends he’d help his dad get the place up and running and later, in his twenties, he continued the family tradition and worked behind the bar. His book, "Two and Two: McSorley's, My Dad, and Me," is a great read about fathers, sons and one great bar.
23 Nov 2021
Last Call with Richard Crouse: Return me to Harry’s Bar, 5 Daunou.
On this episode of "Last Call with Richard Crouse" we visit Paris and James Bond's favourite bar. The home of the Bloody Mary and "An American in Paris," Harry's New York Bar at 5, Rue Daunou, is one of the world's most legendary cocktail bars. With the help of cocktail historians Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller of Mixellany, Richard traces the history of the bar where real life "International Bar Flies" like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Coco Chanel, Humphrey Bogart, Edward VIII and George Gershwin all bent elbows. Join us for a story of a disgraced sport superstar, cocktails, and a New Year's Eve wild goose chase around Paris.
28 May 2021
LAST CALL PODCAST Trailer
We can't go to bars right now, so here is a chance to safely soak up the ambiance of the world's greatest watering holes. Last Call with Richard Crouse is a podcast on the stories behind the places where everybody knows your name.
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