Sully’s Is Dying, And So Are We
I don’t actually know if FW Sullivan’s is a dive. Sorry, was a dive. The unassuming bar in Richmond announced they were closing today and instantly I was transported back to October 2015. I was 22, my first adult job paycheck was burning a hole in my pocket, and it was Halloween weekend.
I’ve been to Richmond a few dozen times, and FW Sullivan’s (or Sully’s) was the spot almost every time I was there. I can’t tell you a single thing about it. Is it a nice place? Gross? What’s the bathroom situation? What kind of drinks do they serve? Your guess is as good as mine. With a nasty habit, left over from college, of drinking until blackout and only paying for drinks with cash, most Richmond weekends are memories of hungover drives back to DC without even a receipt to track my adventure. Virginia doesn’t really have “bars” in the traditional sense. All drinking establishments are required to serve food and a certain percentage of their profits have to come from the kitchen instead of liquor. This means that basically every bar is a family friendly place… during the day. At night, Sully’s, like most of the bars in the Fan and Carytown neighborhoods, switched over to a younger, more debaucherous clienatel. The kind of drinking you can only do in your early twenties is the kind of drinking that took place here. Red bull and vodka, shots of Fireball and Jager. All those drinks that are bought as pranks or dares. But despite the taste, the round was free and when you’re that young it’s impossible to say who the joke was really on.
We’d start our nights at any of the infinite bars in the area, District 5, 3 Monkeys, Social 52, a bar without a number in its name, presumably, but Sully’s was always where the night ended. Dancing, singing, promising the college friends we were visiting that we would always do this! Growing up and moving out of our college town didn’t mean we were going to lose each other!
And then, of course, it did. You drift away, grow up, stop driving 2 hours to drink all night and sleep on a friend’s floor when you have a perfectly nice bed and a perfectly nice bar here already.
Before Covid hit, I already knew I was going to leave the East Coast this year and I spent the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 on a farewell tour of sorts. Getting drinks with my friends in DC, trying to reconnect with some of the ones I let get away before. I was excited for the next chapter of my life but in so many ways, it felt like the final days of my youth. The city I loved, all my local spots, my friends, the bartenders who knew my name and order, were going to be left behind. Growing up is constantly experiencing tiny deaths of your sense of self. You no longer recognize the young drunk idiot in that photo from 5 years ago, you start to gag at the mere thought of a drink you could’ve easily downed all night freshman year, 11pm now seems like a perfectly reasonable bedtime, instead of when the night starts. I was saying goodbye to friends, sure, but I was also saying goodbye to the kid I was while living in DC. I knew I was leaving but there was comfort in knowing all my spots would still be there; standing tall as monuments to my youth. And, when I didn’t get a chance to say bye to everyone because of the first lockdown, there was a standing promise that “when all of this is over” I’d come back east and we’d grab a drink at Sully’s.
Going on 7 months we’ve waited for something, anything, to show that anyone with even the slightest amount of power gave a shit about us. Rent and mortgage forgiveness, stimulus, any relief to this ongoing nightmare. Instead we got a total failure of leadership from the White House to the liberal mayors of every major city. Instead of extending unemployment relief, cities began to kick people off unemployment, reopen and then turn around and scold anyone who actually had the audacity to go out. Not only was no one coming to save us, but they expected the hourly workers of this country to proudly march to their own deaths. If the covid didn’t kill you, the lack of income and tips, or the bar you worked going under, would. The world that exists “when all of this is over” if such a day ever comes, is not going to look anything like it did.
There was nothing particularly special about that Halloween night in Richmond 5 years ago. We dressed up, danced, drank, a very normal night for me in my early twenties. Nothing stands out about that night which would drag me back 5 years with such force just by simply seeing the name of an old bar. Nothing, except after last call, just outside of Sullivan’s, having a cigarette, a hazy and beautiful memory talking to my friends about the future. We were hopeful and stupid in the way you can only be at 22. We were all going to be rockstars, titans of industry, and we were never going to stop partying.
Did I feel this way because I was 22? Or because it was 2015, before Trump was anything more than a joke and before my eyes were ripped open to the horrors of capitalism and American life? I can’t say for sure which was more responsible for my youthful optimism, but it doesn’t matter. For me, they went away at the same time. Before covid, bars in the Trump era were my relief. A cheap, effective way of making it all a little easier. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t just sit and complain about it — I went to protests, volunteered for local campaigns, joined DSA, but all of these events ended with me asking “hey, anyone wanna grab a drink after this?” Building ourselves up for the next fight, healing from our failures, and fighting the absurd loneliness one finds just from living.
Without the monetary relief the waitresses, bartenders, and owners needed to stay afloat during the lockdown, dives are dying. I’ll never be younger than I am now, no one is coming to save us, a favorite bar is dead and a part of me is dead with it. Fuck. The only thing that could help a situation like this is a stiff drink, in a dark unassuming place, with an old friend. I wonder if we’ll ever get to do that again.