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• Tip Top Tavern

WFYI producer Aric Hartvig, 27, hanging out at Tip Top Tavern. (Neal Taflinger for The Star)

The bar at Tip Top Tavern. (Neal Taflinger for The Star)

John Barney, 45, of The Passengers, performing at Tip Top Tavern. (Neal Taflinger for The Star)

Destination: Tip Top Tavern

8:45 p.m.

Three things have to be taken into account when opening a business: location, location, location. That's three strikes against the Tip Top Tavern before you get through the door. The northwest quadrant of Downtown might have been hoppin' years ago, but nowadays ain't nothing around 10th Street and Capitol Avenue but parking lots, vacant buildings, an office complex and a Starbucks.

Tim Reuter bought the former Club Cabaret in 2005. The Tip Top was established in this location in 1946, and before that it occupied a location across Capitol Avenue. Reuter rechristened the bar and proceeded to put his own stamp on it. Flat-screen televisions are par for the course in 2007, but the ornate 100-year-old mahogany bar is the centerpiece of the room. Reuter salvaged the bar from a tavern in "the valley," the lowlands west of the White River near Belmont Avenue.

It's open-stage night and two members of the Passengers, John Barney, 45, and Rich Hynes, 48, are playing with Tip Top talent booker A.J. Alenduff, 30. Hynes dubbed the pleasant blend of Delta blues and rural rock "county music": "It's like country music without the R," the bandleader says.

9:05 p.m.

The bar's bright lights dim, and I grab hold of Aric Hartvig as he heads out the door. "I usually come here after work to unwind," the 27-year-old says. Hartvig has earned the downtime: The WFYI producer has won two regional Emmys, one for on-air talent and one for videography. Hartvig finds comfort in familiarity -- the Thursday night bartender knows his regular order and the band of one of his friends plays here regularly.

9:20 p.m.

The largest group of people in the bar huddles around a circular table fingering round plastic chips and Bicycle brand cards and playing Texas Hold'em. Charlie Stultz, 48, deals a hand. Tall and rangy in a track suit, Stultz has slicked-back silver hair, a mustache and a wry smile. He looks like the kind of guy who would hobble around the perimeter of a basketball court before schooling the young guys one-on-one with a wink and a snicker.

Stultz likes the fast-paced variation of poker and meets friends weekly at the Tip Top to trade chips and quips. He leans over to separate and stack chips for the player to his left, identified to me only as Jimmy. "He don't see too good," Stultz says.

Jimmy wears small rectangular framed glasses on the tip of his nose; he also carries shaggy hair and a bushy mustache. "He looks like a Wild West saloonkeeper," I say to Stultz.

"Or Captain Kangaroo," Stultz replies. We both howl, and he asks me not to quote him. "Why not? He can't see too good, so he's not gonna read it," I say.

9:45 p.m.

The thin crowd gets skinnier as I make my way toward the door. The friendly bar boasts good food and room to kick up your heels. I reckon the Tip Top has all the ingredients to make it a happenin' place on the Near Northside. Except for that pesky location.