The Valley Inn

4000 W Clybourn Street, Milwaukee

The Valley Inn is a fine example of an old Milwaukee tavern.  It has several charms: the ambiance created by the worn and faded wood that surrounds you, the unpretentious food and the honest ales served up by the honest host.  

Being an unrepentant Tolkien-phile made me upon approaching this place for the first time, immediately conjure up in my mind that warm and inviting Inn at Bree.  Entering a long and low room, one couldn’t be blamed for expecting to be immersed in a diverse company of celebratory Middle-Earthlings. 

There he is; I knew he would be inside! Strider himself in a distant corner...musing over a dark glass. This is his place.

With a little more delving another more subtle advantage surfaces: the Inn’s inaccessibility.  The place is tucked away in Piggsville.  To a suburban rube such as myself, this quaint area, though in the very center of old Milwaukee, is stubbornly difficult to find.  Although I have lived for the past three decades no more than seven miles away from this enclave, it was my recently getting lost trying to find a short-cut to Discount Liquors that allowed me, quite by accident, to come across it. Entranced, I vowed to return to sample more throughly what sights the neighborhood had to offer. It was during one of those rambles that I was fortunate to discover this pub.

The southern border of Piggsville is a major highway. Those who use this elevated road to get home to the western suburbs cannot be reprimanded for having no knowledge of the rich and varied streets that lie below to the north. The patrons of the place may, I suspect, very well prefer it that way.  Many of them are folk who, after a shift at the gigantic brewery that forms the northern border of the area, come in to drink a few pours of what they spend their days making.  

Workers on the line, cops on their lunch break, and citizens who are fortunate enough to live within walking distance of the Valley Inn are its other usual customers.  Sitting at the bar, I struggled valiantly (and fooled no one) to pass myself off as a "local" while enjoying the $5.95 nachos and a Riverwest Stein. Perhaps browsing through an article in a recent issue of The Journal of the American Viola da Gamba Society entitled No Muss...No Fuss: How to Re-Tune Your ’Da Gamba The Easy Way made my disguise less than effective.  Next time I’ll bring an issue of Pro-Wrestling Illustrated.

The dish was an poem to simplicity: bubbling cheddar over crispy chips and nothing else. The “nothing else” was a lacuna of serene eloquence. “The world is over-burdened with complexities and troubles. Here at the Valley Inn our nachos are simple and true.” The dish came right out off the pages of Raymond Chandler:

"What gives? We run a nice respectable place here.

No funny stuff gets pulled."

So said the man with carrot-coloured hair to Phillip Marlowe. If his words were food, that food would be the nachos at The Valley Inn. No funny stuff.

To my right was a gentleman who, he told me matter-of-factly, had been a daily customer of the place for 30 years. Unlike the geographic location of this pub, he was not the least bit inaccessible.  We created quite the jollification together while watching on the "big screen" the local Ball-club (whose immeasurable home looms like a ghastly Nazgûl over the peaceful neighborhood) absolutely decimate (12-3) the visiting team from Miami.  

Go Pack.

The “Valley Inn” at 40th and West Clybourn ornaments Milwaukee with conviviality and damned good nachos. No fancy pants.