Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill

Saturday
Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill in St. Louis Park

I can't take credit for this event.  I had a busy Friday night as stated in my previous post and I worked an extra long day at the Y.  I was ready to just go home and relax a bit.  While I was working, I got a voicemail from the BFF that she needed to get out of the house because her husband had friends over and couldn't handle any more male bonding time.  She was in the mood to go out to dinner and maybe some dancing.  L and dancing doesn't happen very often so I jumped at the chance to get her out of the house and keep her out after 8pm.

She came over and we did some brainstorming on where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do.  My sister was the one who mentioned Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill.  One just opened in June/July in St. Louis Park.  So we went out of our "comfort zone" and had a little road trip.

It was very easy to find...which may be a little dangerous.  It's in a new shopping area called "The Shops At West End", something similar to Arbor Lakes.  Parking ramp, cobble-stoned sidewalks and thoroughfares.  Little shops and eateries.  Musical rocks and plants.

We got there around 6:30 and it was a 40 minute wait.  We gave the hostess our cell phone number as we chose to shop while we waited.  Not many places open yet as it is still under construction, so we spent most of our time in a place called Love Culture.  Very urban chic.  The clothes only fit mannequins so mainly looked at the jewelry, accessories, shoes and handbags.  L and I bought matching earrings and necklaces.  Just another excuse to go out on the town.  I definitely want to go back to West End again and try out some of the other restaurants.  Especially the wine bars.

So we get a call that they're ready for us and we get a high top on what would be the dance floor.  We passed comfy booths on the way, but on a Saturday night, I think a high top by the dance floor is the best place to be.  The food was so-so.  I had the ribs with TK's signature sauce which were a little on the cold side, L and J had a chicken wrap.  It looked tasty but were drippy messy.  They came with fries, which you would think to be thick steak fries.  But nope....think McDonald's.

Where TK's really shines is in their booze.  If you've heard the song, you know that beer comes in mason jars.  There was a drink list, but the 3 of us got what I call a Rum Bucket.  You had 4 choices.  Just a Rum Mixer...I love Malibu Diet's so I had a Coconut Cruzan Diet.  Or you could have the Cruzan Confusion.  Or the Rum Breeze.  Or what L and J had...the Voodoo Juice.  Tasted like glorified Fruit Punch....Yum!

We were able to take our buckets home.  Don't think they'd let you take the mason jars home though.  (Note: If you click on the pictures, you can make out the recipes so you can try at home.)

There was an awesome guy singing, Shane Wyatt.  He had a great country twang voice and a southern drawl when he spoke.  I think we may have found our High Noon replacement.  We saw people that were hard core country ie.  5 gallon hats and boots with spurs, leather jackets with fringe.  One Mexican dude looked like Elvis (the older Elvis with big sideburns and huge sunglasses).  The only people that were dancing were old people in their square dancing dresses and they were getting whipped around, spun around.  There was no pop-it-lock-it-hip-hop-it-move-side-to-side.  By the time we left it was 10:30, the dance floor was packed and it was standing room only.

I could go on and on.  It was a blast and I'm going back again.  If you want to go out but don't know where, if you want to experience something new that you may never really ever do otherwise, this would be the perfect place for you.