Thursday nights at Goat and Compass in Wilmington’s Brooklyn district go a little something like this: a cute bartender humoring a regular, a Bostonian with the accent, $3.50 Blue Moons, Miami swinging triple digits against the Pacers, lights dim but not too dim, Lou Reed in the speakers, “Doo do doo do doo do do doo …”
“I come here even when I’m off,” says 34-year-old Christie Ann, the bartender. “We have great patrons, and they usually act right.”
When I arrive, Larry Crose, the Bostonian, is the only customer in the bar. He moved here for work, he tells me, and lives in the neighborhood. He’s wearing a green shirt with a clover on the back and he seems relaxed. So relaxed, in fact, that at first I thought he was the owner.
“You feel at home here. It’s the neighborhood bar, you know?” he says. And I swear I’m not making this up, he then adds, “It’s almost like ‘Cheers,’” and because he has the accent and he’s wearing the colors I’m prone to believe him. I’ve chosen to ignore the fact that a string of British – not Irish – flags hang above the liquor display.
With a beer in hand I turn back to my side of the bar. I came to Goat and Compass with two friends, and the first thing we notice is the noise, or lack of it. We were having a conversation without yelling over the loudspeakers, and we all agreed the playlist was so good – Violent Femmes, The Cure, Bowie, Talking Heads, Lou Reed – that we wouldn’t have cared if we had to.
We take our second drinks out back, which on a quiet Thursday night seems absurdly spacious. A carpet of white river rock lays out before us, and several large picnic tables sit in the corners. We choose the table in the back and stick with it, despite the 25-degree tilt in the surface, and check to make sure the beers won’t slide. On busier nights the backyard gets a lot of use, Ann says, and the league of cornhole athletes are thankful for the space.
Finished with our drinks, we head back inside and ask to close out, unsure if we’ve hit the notorious credit minimum. We were pleased to find that Goat and Compass doesn’t have one, which surely makes it one of the few bars in the vicinity of downtown to offer such a convenience to the modern credit-heavy customer.
All in all, we’re extremely pleased with our experience, and Ann promises she’ll remember all three of our names when we return. On the way out I notice an old piano in the corner, the white paint chipping off. I ask Ann if it’s ever used, and she says yeah, occasionally, but it’s a little out of tune. And something about Goat and Compass tells me that’s the way it should be.
– Carson Vaughan
