The wonderfully weird decorations on the walls of Minder Binders in the 1980s, Tempe, Arizona


Although it's common for chain restaurants, like Applebees, to hang stuff on the walls, to give a kind of quirky randomness to the experience, nothing I've ever seen in a long life has ever compared to the stuff on the walls of Minder Binders, which was a bar in the town where I went to college, Tempe, Arizona. If you saw it, you know, and it defies explanation, but I'm gonna try,

First of all, it wasn't a chain, and it wasn't just all planned out for effect. It was in an old barn, and the items on the wall (and hanging from the ceiling, etc.) were amazing just to look at, which I did a lot. The images weren't obscene, they were what is usually called "suggestive". And every time I went in there, between 1981 and 1982, I would see new things that would make me smile.

A friend of mine just sent me a photo of the interior of Minder Binders "back in the day" and it provides an excellent example. Note what the girl is saying. Suggestive, right? I can see my old friend grinning at it, he always loved this kind of stuff. There's a silly kind of sophistication to it. I love it, too.

There wasn't anything that was blatant, but it did bring the blush of shame to my little face the first time I brought my girlfriend in there. I considered her prim and proper, and it was an early lesson in my life that women understand these things, and roll with them. She always called the place "Minder Bogglers", by the way, and I think she went there more often than I did.



Yes, it's all long gone, like my youth. The old barn was torn down years ago and there was an auction for the stuff on the wall which had become collectibles. I paid my last respects to the original place, just standing outside of it next to the sign, in 2009.


I went to the building that replaced it in 2015, and quaffed a few beers with my friend, but of course it wasn't the same. As far as I know the new place isn't open anymore, but don't worry, there are plenty of places to get a beer in Tempe. But there'll never be another Minder Binders.


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