Odes to Last Calls of Atlanta — Vol 2: Drinks & Tables · Track 33 · middle

Little Five Points Pub: The Room That Taught the Neighborhood

The Little Five Points Pub at 1174 Euclid Avenue NE, Atlanta — late-60s beer joint that became the L5P anchor before gentrification, after gentrification, and through every wave in between. Opens at 7 a.m. for the regulars. Across from Variety Playhouse, around the corner from Junkman's Daughter and Stratosphere. Where punks, goths, theater kids, sex workers, neighborhood lifers, and Emory grad students all overlap on the same sticky bartop. The dive that taught L5P how to be L5P. Cheap pitchers, tot specials, jukebox with both Patsy Cline and Bad Brains. Still standing.

Lyrics

[Intro]
(rolling upright bass, distant jukebox bleed, room hum)

Eleven seventy-four Euclid,
the door's been open since before you were born.

[Verse 1]
Seven a.m. and Janice is pouring,
the regulars in by the time the sun crests Moreland.
Across the street the Variety's marquee says nothing yet,
Junkman's Daughter still locked, the Stratosphere still asleep.
The pub already knows what kind of day it's going to be.
The pub always knows.

[Chorus]
Oh, Little Five Pub,
the room that taught the neighborhood how to be itself.
Punks and theater kids,
grandmothers and grad students,
all on the same sticky bar.
All on the same sticky bar.

[Verse 2]
Tot special at noon, pitcher of PBR at four,
the goths come in at seven and the band crowd at ten.
Jukebox plays Patsy then Bad Brains then Etta then Fugazi
and nobody flinches — that's the deal here, that's always been the deal.
Gentrification came and went and came back, the rent went up and up,
but the pub stayed open, the pub stayed open, the pub stayed.

[Chorus]
Oh, Little Five Pub,
the room that taught the neighborhood how to be itself.
Before the condos, after the condos,
through every wave Euclid Avenue ever rode —
the pub stayed open.
The pub stayed open.

[Outro]
(jukebox fade, door creak)
Last call's just a suggestion here.
The door's been open since before you were born.