It's only logical that people who live in a city that has a long name will eventually coin shortened versions of that name, I suppose both to save time & effort and as a shared term of endearment. Thus here at home Indianapolis is Indy. Appalachicola, Florida is Appalach, and Wapakoneta, OH is Wapak, pronounced the way a Bostonian would pronounce "War Park". I learned this by visiting a couple of establishments in downtown Wapakoneta one afternoon where I ran smack dab into a charity golf pub crawl to honor a beloved late Wapak high school alumnus. The participants all had golf putters, since some of the establishments involved in the crawl had actual little putting greens set up to help raise charity money. It seemed like a cool idea until somewhat later in the day when putter discipline faltered due to alcohol consumption and some folks experienced some serious near misses.
I mention the pub crawl only because the crowd's arrival cut short my visit to The Alpha Cafe and my conversation with its proprietor, thus I was unable to learn much of The Alpha's 125-year history, several decades of which involve ownership by the same family. The Alpha is a beautiful place that seems like a fancier version of The Rustic Cafe in Delphos-- a long narrow storefront space that is nevertheless quite deep. Just like The Rustic (and probably most small town downtown taverns everywhere. The Grill Bar in Franklin, Indiana comes to mind), there is a long bar along one side and a line of booths on the other. About midways back there is a grill/kitchen space, with a dining/games area behind that.
The bar itself is incredibly grand: huge and all carved wood from the 1890's, not something you'd expect to see in a small town. I was trying to take a cell phone picture of the entire fixture in one photo and failing, it was so big! The young lady bartender saw me struggling with my phone camera and handed me a postcard with the exact photo I desired. The bar was designed and installed by the Brunswick-Balke-Collander Company, forerunner of the present Brunswick bowling alley dynasty which, incidentally, built the bowling alley in the famous Biltmore Mansion at about the same time during the "Gay 90's".
The proprietor was a gruff but friendly guy, though I know that seems like an oxymoron. He had just started telling me about the history of the place when the pub crawl folks came in, so I didn't get to hear much more. I had a cheap and cold bottle of domestic beer alongwith a cheese and fried bologna plate. Experience with this and other regional establishmets teaches me that people in the farm-rich Northwest Ohio really know their way around beef, pork and cheese. The locally-sourced bologna was seasoned, tender, and tasty, and the hot pepper cheese was spicy and delicious.
The crowd was a little loud and boisterous but they were suddenly drowned out by a guy whooping, hollering, and dancing round like a man on fire. Everyone there looked at him like he might be insane, until we found out he was streaming the Bengals playoff game on his phone and they had just made a crucial interception, so when that was revealed the crowd broke out in applause. It's interesting to me that NW Ohio seems to prefer the Cincinnati teams for professional baseball and football rather than Cleveland, makes me like it there even more. At any rate I will say the flat and almost featureless prairies certainly give way to some of the prettiest little towns anywhere, among which "Wapak" rates quite highly and the Alpha is a great part of it. Cheers!
