Let's Get Liquored Up

First up is this Universal San Francisco cover for Bruni's Tap Room which was located at 1041 South 1st Street in San Jose. It has some nice script and sans serif lettering and an illustration of the building they're located in. Since I liked the look of the building I thought I'd look it up on Gooogle's street view.

The address differs from what's on the cover, but Google maps the address to this location. It looks like a few buildings nearby have been torn down, so the address numbers may have changed. The location is correct, the architectural details match and you can still see a bracket at the top center that once held the Bruni's sign. There's not much about this place online, but apparently they were famous for cabbage rolls.

The next cover is from Patmar's Drive-In Liquor Store and Motel in El Segundo, California. A quick search on the internet turned up this postcard from the same location. I like how the motel units on the far left look like they're on the edge of a race track.

The Black Cat was located in Danville, Illinois and you won't find that address searching Google Maps. According to this website the building isn't there anymore:

"A few mysteries have been solved — involving the Black Cat Tavern, that is — in the past month. First, Sue Richter, director of the Vermilion County Museum, called me to explain how the Black Cat Tavern ended up having two locations. Richter said the original Black Cat Tavern at 13 S. Vermilion St. burned down on June 8, 1949. 'They called it the Black Cat fire and it wiped out a lot of South Vermilion Street,' she said. According to Richter, a fire wall between the tavern and Palmer Bank prevented the fire from spreading to the bank."

I was able to find the building that was once Bob Read's Top Hat in Phoenix, Arizona, which is now a Mexican tile store.

A few more interesting covers from bars and cocktails lounges that I have in my collection.