A fellow instructor and I drove up to Nye's around 6:00. It's right next to the Mississippi River near Nicollet Island, and looks like a total dive from the outside. Inside, however, it was all gorgeous stained glass swag lamps, a bar covered with sparkly red vinyl and booths upholstered in gold sparkly vinyl ("Oooh, purty," as Czeltic Girl would say). The walls were dark wood paneling. The bar was packed with old fogeys drinking highballs.

The ancient woman who seated us had a huge bouffant hairdo and painted-on clown eyebrows, I think she must've been Mrs. Nye, but my companion insisted that she looked just like his mom. We ordered a couple of Polish beers. I can't remember what they were called...Swzybriewski, or sumthin'...whatever, they tasted good. We also ordered a polish appetizer sampler with cheese pierogis, potato dumplings, sauerkraut, kielbasa, and cabbage rolls. How do you say 'delish' in Polish?

Our waitress, who had the traditional polish name 'Brittany', brought out classic Midwestern relish trays and a small loaf of rye bread to munch on as well, along with our salads. I was already full by the time my entree arrived; a huge plate of beef spareribs with more kraut piled on top. The meat was falling off the bones and the kraut was superb.

When Brittany teased us with the dessert menu, we couldn't resist. I ordered the Polish Mazurka, a sweet oatmeal cake topped with vanilla ice cream and raspberry syrup. Bye bye, Atkins!

After that, we bellied up to the sparkly red bar and ordered a couple of Nye's house martinis made with Polish vodka. I puckered right up...they were stiffer than a shirt starched at a Chinese laundry. No wimpy faux martinis here.

We sat next to a couple of old geezers who were twins, they kept singing to the bartender who seemed clearly annoyed by their attentions. There was a gaggle of bachelorettes sitting across from us at one of the gold booths. They kept ogling us, probably because we were the only dudes in the joint under age 60.

Around 8pm the piano bar opened up, hosted by your stereotypical supperclub ivory tinkler. The older couples all swarmed around him and took turns crooning Sinatra tunes in cracked voices. I told my buddy that I would be Simon Crowell, and he could be Paula Abdul. One of the bachelorettes also went up and took a crack at a couple of old standards. She had a great voice.

Finally, all of the bachelorettes got up and started group unharmonizing to "Leaving On a Jet Plane". At that point, we decided to get up and leave before we found ourselves doing karaoke to Ramones songs played Ultra Lounge style. The bachelorettes all let out a sigh of disappointment when we split. We're such a couple of heartbreakers...

So in closing, if you find yourself in Mary Tyler Mooreland with time on your hands, you could do a lot worse than spend an evening enjoying yourself Polish style at Nye's. Great food, potent drinks, bad singing, and unnatural upholstery...they just don't make places like this any more, folks.