…that U District hangout for construction workers, filmmakers, and guys who can’t stop talking about how radical they used to be 40 years ago, is threatened again. Its owner Gustav Hellthaler has gotten tired of
municipal harassment and of the state’s refusal to let him add hard booze, a right that’s been granted to almost all former beer-and-wine-only bars in town.

So the joint, one of the few bars in town in continuous operation since the end of Prohibition, is for sale.

It could be bought by someone who’d turn it into an upscale gourmet restaurant.

It could be bought by someone who’d turn it into an unthreatening nostalgia theme bar.

Or it could be bought by one or more of the affluent boomers who frequent or used to frequent the place, and kept largely as-is.