the WAB

Small towns come with all sorts of staples and predictable accommodations. Ferndale: the perfect place for liberal-minded, creatively-driven twenty-somethings is no exception. Since I moved, one of my favorite things to tell people when they asked me how I liked it here was that it felt like I belonged. The free-spirited party crowd you'd come to expect needs an assortment of watering holes to fill up on the weekends. The cornerstone of Ferndale is three adjacent bars: the Woodward Avenue Brewers (WAB), the Emory and the Loving Touch. All owned by the same people, it's the WAB that feels like the real hub of the city.

My first time there was in March of 2008. On a Wednesday night I had gone with some friends to see Justice at the Royal Oak Music Theater. I was living in Farmington Hills at the time, and had taken the following two days off of work. My friends spent the night at my house and I stayed home on Thursday watching the start of March Madness. That night, my work hosted a bar night (something we used to frequently do every couple months) at the WAB. The place was packed when I got there, an upstairs of a corner building with a unique multi-tiered layout. When you arrive, to your left is a staircase which takes you to the main bar. They have a patio with a bar downstairs that's only open during the summer, but I wouldn't learn about that until later. On this night, I was overwhelmed by being at one of my first work functions, and was more than happy to do a shot with anyone and everyone. I even got tricked by one girl who gave me tequila but drank a shot of water herself. This was also right after I went vegan, and so unable to partake in most of the provided snacks, I went to the bar and ordered some black bean dip. The rest of the night consisted of knocking over a plate of chips, my first experience inside of a photo booth and my only time going to the DIA where I met a girl that I would proceed to "date" several times who never really seemed all that into me.

I can't even count the number of times I've been back since then, and if there's anything I feel comfortable losing track of, that's definitely not that worst of them. Most often I have gone there for half-off food on Monday nights, which serves as a comfortable routine to start the work week. Like Monday Night Football for the hip crowd. And Sunday nights, all of their house-brewed beers are only $2.00. I'm a firm believer in Sunday as a day of rest. Everyone uses them differently, and some people even have to work, but that doesn't change it from being a day where you want everything to be relaxed and the way you want it. Sometimes that means putting on a record or walking around my neighborhood. Often it's doing laundry and tidying up my house. It's a day to feel at home. Sometimes, in a small town, the place you want to be on a Sunday night is at the bar. Dinner with a date or a table of new friends and good conversation. Yesterday it was just me and my notebook. Two hours, two pints of vanilla porter and twenty-two pages later, my mind was much more at ease. I felt at home, when I laid down, and that's a good way to feel in a small town. It'd be much better than leaving.