Live, from Peoria, Illinois, it’s Saturday Night with this week’s hosts, Country Club BBQ and Rail II with special musical guest stars, The Fantastic Plastics and Tina Sparkle. And now, please welcome this week’s neighboring hosts on Farmington Road, Country Club BBQ and Rail II!
Alright, here we are at the first stop of the night, The Country Club BBQ bar. Clay who owns the bar told me they have a new item on the menu and he invited me down to try it out, so that’s going to be our Saturday night dinner.
Let’s go in and start this week’s Saturday night adventure!
Seat yourself...okay, that’s what we’ll do, I’m not going to start making waves this early in the evening!
There’s some seats over on this side of the bar, so let’s go seat ourselves already, Freddy!
Here’s Clay, the owner of The Country Club! And he’s got a bottle of Budweiser and he reminded me that every Saturday, bottles of Budweiser and Bud Light are just one dollar, all night long! Such a deal! I think I’ll get a couple of cases to go when I leave! He told me that our Saturday night dinner would be up soon, so till then let’s take a stroll around the bar.
There’s a game room opposite the bar complete with a competition-sized shuffleboard table and a pool table next to that.
Check out the art on the walls of some country music stars, they’re done by local artist, John Reno.
I like this elevated section over by the far wall complete with picnic tables and a classic Shiner neon sign.
Here’s the view from up here.
There’s another bar back here, let’s go say hi to the two women sitting over there.
Hi! These two pretty women are Amber and Cara. Amber told me she’s a faithful MBIP reader and I thanked her for that! We had a nice chat about Peoria and the blog. It was fun to meet and hang out with both of them!
There’s a heated beer garden in the back and there’s quite a crowd back here tonight.
As you can see, the bar is all filled up back here with people watching the Saturday night sporting events.
There was a birthday party going on back here and in the center is the birthday girl, Tammy flanked by Scott on the left and Bob on the right. We met Scott last summer at Michelle and Todd’s party and after talking to Bob, it turns out he was featured in POP magazine years ago! Keep on scrolling to see those pages from POP!
Meanwhile, back at the bar, here’s Clay delvering tonight’s dinner and the newest entry on The Country Club’s menu...
It’s a dish they call, “Lara’s Q Stew” and it’s Clay’s sister’s Lara’s recipe of a BBQ Brunswick Stew. Clay told me that the stew has a tomato and barbecue base with smoked brisket, pork and vegetables. In the middle of the bowl is a scoop of creamy mashed potatoes. This sounds like a perfect dish for the upcoming winter nights!
Wow, it’s unbelievably tasty! The brisket and pork give it a hearty and savory flavor and the vegetables and mashed potatoes add flavor and texture all at the same time. This is a very unique dish and you should stop by and try it out! And now it’s on to the second stop of the evening...
The Rail II, which is located down the road, within walking distance of The Country Club. This building used to be Sy Maroon’s Hitching Post, way back when and then it was Rocky’s, I’ve had many beers and some crazy times in this building through the years!
They’re now featuring live music here, which is very cool. It’s been years since I’ve been in this place, let’s go inside and take a look at what’s happening in here tonight.
Wow, I think that’s the original bar in here! It feels like I’ve just walked back in time!
I met a couple new people and saw two familiar faces in here right off the bat! Clockwise from top left: Bartender Nick serves up a can of beer, there’s Brandi who we first met when she was bartending at Castaway’s in Chillicothe, Drew was hanging out at the bar and Nathan said hi and reminded me that we met way back on the 365 bar crawl when I stopped in at The Tartan Inn, which was my 363rd stop! Great to see all these people!
This room is opposite the bar and there’s a pool table back here and it leads to the room where the bands play. And the band currently playing tonight is...
The Fantastic Plastics!
That was one of the most unique and fun shows I’ve ever seen! I really hope I can see them again!
Above is their debut CD, Devolver, which is available at Amazon. Here’s the Fantastic Plastics on Twitter. They just followed me back today!
Here’s the Fantastic Plastics after the show. They live in Brooklyn and we talked about New York for a little bit. Hopefully they’ll come back to Peoria, they put on such a great show!
I sat at a table with Shannon, Lisa and Skyler after the Plastic Fantastics show. We last saw Shannon when she was performing live at Sky Harbor and she told me about tonight’s show, so thanks for letting me know about this, Shannon!
Paroma, Brian and Brad were seated at a table behind us and Paroma recognized me from the blog and said hi to me. And so I took their photo, that’s the way it works around here, folks! Wonderful to meet all of them!
I ran into Kayla, who we just saw last Friday night at Pizza Works. I swear I’m not stalking her!
And now, next up on stage...
Tina Sparkle!
Great show from Tina Sparkle, they rocked my socks off!
This is the latest CD from Tina Sparkle and you can purchase it right here! Follow Tina Sparkle on Twitter, I did and I’m still waiting for them to follow me back! *UPDATE: They just followed me back pm Twitter! Hooray! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Related Posts: Saturday Night @ Agatucci’s, Last Chance Bar & Grill and McMahon’s Pints and Plates.
Surprise Link, click on it...I dare you!
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Bonus Bob Pages from POP Magazine!
I met Bob in the back of The Country Club with Scott and Tammy and he told me he had been in the pizza issue of POP magazine! I don’t have that issue anymore, but Bob was kind enough to scan it in and send it to us. It’s an article by Jane Rohrschneider about Bob back when he owned Pacer’s Pizza here in Peoria! Thanks for the memories bob and it’s great to have met you again!
