The summer of 1934 hit the Midwest like a furnace, with a drought that saddled farmers with the most anemic harvest many had seen in decades.
But at least it wasn’t dry.
Prohibition died a celebrated death the year before. Combination roadhouse service stations sold beer for a nickel — driver and vehicle could get fueled up simultaneously.
It was in that wonderful, miserable season, just past the blackest days of the Great Depression, that Larry Paoletti bought the property at 2040 N. High St. and opened Lawrence’s Italian Restaurant, a nice but not-too-fancy place with fresh pasta, beer, wine and checkered tablecloths.
This year, Lawrence’s Restaurant, now Larry’s Bar, celebrates its 70th anniversary, making it the oldest drinking establishment in Ohio State’s campus area.
By way of celebration, the bar has been dealing out free Larry’s gear to its regulars, including Larry’s shot glasses, pint glasses and bumper stickers. T-shirts are coming in a month or so. Zippo lighters are a strong possibility – maybe in December.
There’s something about Larry’s.
Tucked in a dark corner, next to a Playboy pinball machine, there’s a wooden phone booth like a displaced set piece from “The Maltese Falcon.”
One of the booths along the south wall is rigged with a hidden drawer supposedly used by pot dealers for secretive drop-offs and pick-ups. (A recent inspection turned up two blank Post-It Notes and an unopened condom.)
There’s a bookshelf next to the bar containing about 40 titles, which include “Khrushchev: A Career” and the “1978 World Almanac and Book of Facts.” Resting on top of Yahtzee and Scrabble is a beat-up Trivial Pursuit game with present-tense geography questions about Soviet satellite nations.
Gathering a sense of style from the environment in Larry’s is like looking for fashion tips in the sediment of a stream bed.
But because the bar’s flair is the debris from 70 years of flowing time, Larry’s has a stark, tangible identity.
Owner Jon Paoletti, Larry’s grandson, possesses patience and an understanding of the business, which has shielded that identity from marketing gimmicks and makeovers. He puzzles over the attitude of bar owners who “expect they’re going to get rich real fast.”
Paoletti said the original restaurant morphed gradually into the bar it is now. It’s not clear exactly when Lawrence’s became Larry’s, but he credits World War II for the initial kick toward a focus on spirits. He figures a city full of men coming back from the front lines probably wanted a beer or two.
Jon’s wife, Linda Paoletti, keeps the books and manages the payroll. The spirit of the bar’s endurance keeps her philosophical when customers do such things as knock over their drink.
“Hey, you’re at Larry’s,” she says. “If you can’t spill a beer here …” she said.
But there are limits.
“We don’t like throwing up, peeing or sex in the booths,” she said.
The Paolettis keep the bar’s look dynamic by offering up their south wall as free exhibition space to local artists. Every two or three weeks, the inside of Larry’s gets a facelift as new work replaces old.
Liam O’Brien showed his paintings of giant rubber ducks there this year. When they came down, they went right across the street to the galleries of Ohio Union.
Like any 70-year-old, Larry’s has great stories. Some tales are taller than others.
One thing Jon Paoletti knows is true: folk singer Phil Ochs got his start playing the stage at Larry’s in the early 1960s. Ochs’ Millenium Collection album hangs in the jukebox as a reminder.
One thing Paoletti is pretty sure of: Lou Reed played at Larry’s a few times before The Velvet Underground took off.
What Paoletti thinks might be true: one of the apartments over Larry’s was rented in the early 1950s by “Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling.
One persistent story is the rumor that Larry’s is a gay bar.
A gay bar with anarchist glyphs gouged into the men’s room wall? Maybe. A gay bar without a single disco song on the jukebox? Get real.
Richard Stelling has an explanation. Stelling’s been coming to Larry’s since he studied photojournalism at OSU in the 1960s.
He said when he was a student, Larry’s was a haven for campus intellectuals. The crowd reveled in the wash of its own erudite discourse. Sometimes it was loud enough to drown out the jukebox.
The gay bar rumor was deliberately spread, he says frankly, to keep the frat guys out.
But Stelling says the rumor has outlived its purpose.
He came back to Larry’s during Senior Crawl about 10 years ago. The discourse was not erudite. A beer bottle or two got tossed around; he didn’t like it.
But can any college alumni come back to their old haunt and find the same place they left behind?
The answer is a joke:
How many Larry’s regulars does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Ten – one to change the bulb and nine to stand around and say, “It’s not like the old one.”
