will never forget when we arrived in Morgantown for our football game in 2011 - it was before 8am and the first person to greet us in the parking lot was an older, shirtless mountaineer with limited teeth who recommended we head straight to the best pregame spot... the Applebee's bar
When I pretty much lived in Ky in the 1990’s at that time the town was still pretty rural. There was an new Applebee’s pretty much on the hotel premises.I think is was the first chain in the town.
Applebee’s hit many small towns and enjoyed a monopoly for a period.
If I didn’t have a dinner set up I frequently ate at the bar.
Actually that place was usually jammed. I think they even had live entertainment on some nights.
A little later that town started to boom with a bunch of restaurants and hotels.
That area of Ky became a hot place for automotive sub suppliers as it’s centrally located to many car manufacturers.
The Bartender at Applebees was from Cincinnati and a big basketball fan so the conversation helped passed the time.
i had given up drinking in the 1970’s and my idea of a bar was a Bridgeport or Valley blue collar bar. If you weren’t doing boilermakers you weren’t a man. You seldom saw a women in those places.
I use to kid him he was more of a soda jerk than bar tender with some of the drinks he made.