O O Ø O O O O
Buchanan’s Evening
In exchange for permission to prepare a marketing study on their liquor store, the owners of Nose Creek Wine Merchants asked us to present our findings to them when we were done.
It was 1994 and I was just winding up my first undergraduate degree. My retail marketing groupmates and I had promised to meet both owners and the store manager at Buchanan’s one evening to go over the facts and recommendations of our report.
As I was the one who uncovered the subject business—by cold calling all the neo-nascent independent liquor stores in the Calgary phone book—and as I was the one who wrote the marketing report, it was only fitting that I was the (only) one who bothered to show up that evening.
I arrived early and took a seat in the wide room behind the bar and ordered a Trad, so there would be no doubt about the nature of the evening’s meeting.
Soon enough the four of us were there, and we were going over the generalities of the report.
“There’s money to be made in this business.”
“Honestly?”
“That’s news to us.”
I can sum up the conclusions of my conversation that night quite simply: businesses can cope well with just about any circumstance, except regulatory uncertainty.
At various moments I placed my palms down on the table for emphasis, and I contemplatively traced condensation rings across the table. I looked everyone carefully in the eye, defending each of my findings, drinking beer. If I didn’t convince them with my arguments, I could at least convince them of my sincerity.
Just at the time when I was considering the wisdom of ordering that third Trad—and thereby risking a runaway—the bartender put the greatest album of all time on the stereo, and sealed my fate.
In 1994 the west end of downtown wasn’t developed, so there was nothing to stop the setting sun, modulated by the restaurant windows and bar dividers, from penetrating deep into Buchanan’s back room. My beer shone gold as The Waterboys lit into When Ye Go Away, and my pseudo clients and I hammered away at each other in collegial fashion, until the fourth round was done, and they graciously picked up the tab.
I thanked them, and never saw any of them again. Or my classmates, or the subject store.
Buchanan’s is still there though, and although the light can no longer slant into the back like it once did, it is still the location of the most civilized pint in Calgary.
No cigars, no nukes, no restaurant critics.
Evan Spence
March 6, 2007
OOØOOOODCCCVI