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Crossroads Lounge is no more.
The longtime bar was an Anchorage institution, smack dab in the middle of the gritty Fairview neighborhood at the intersection of Gambell Street and 15th Avenue.
It closed earlier this year around the same time as another club, Williwaw Social, and provoked some big questions among Anchorage residents about the future of their community spaces and businesses. The reaction was particularly acute in Fairview, where a longtime grocery store also recently shut down.
Regulars loved Crossroads because its slogan, “where friends meet,” was actually true. We could go on about it. But instead, we’re giving it to you straight from some of those friends: Crossroads’ sponsored beer league softball team, the Hot Dogs.
Disclosure: The Press’ publisher, Veri di Suvero, is a utility player for the Hot Dogs and helped coordinate this piece. Veri, editor Nat Herz and independent videographer Alex Troutman, another Hot Dog, interviewed players about the team and the bar, and assembled this oral history.
Answers have been edited and condensed.
How did the Hot Dogs come about?
Dave Rittenberg: The original group of us, there’s like three or four of us left that are still on the team. We were Serrano’s, and then we were the German Shepherds for a couple of years, and then we needed a new team name. So, I just walked in, and I talked to (owners) Jen and Dottie and asked if they wanted to sponsor the team, and they were like, ‘Hell yeah!’ And they’ve been sponsoring us ever since.
That was probably 2017. The Hot Dogs were great, because it was just, every Thursday in the summer, you were gonna see your friends. And we’d always swing into the ‘Roads after. We’d mark the real score up on the drink cooler. But when we were walking in, I would always say we won, and everyone would cheer because, you know, people just want something to cheer for.
What are your first memories of going to Crossroads, and how did it end up being a place that you like to go?
Andy Jensen: When I moved to Alaska in 2010, I knew literally zero people. I spent the first few months in my room, watching Celtics games on my computer and playing online poker with my buddies from Arkansas until the FBI shut that shit down. I tried a few sports bars, but usually found that either it took forever to get a game on or they didn’t have the NBA package. Somehow, I found Crossroads, and when I asked for my game, they’d smile and put it on.
I ended up watching so many games there I basically had my own TV, and they eventually let me hang a Celtics banner next to it. I knew I was a regular when I walked in for a preseason game and they already had it on. Turns out they have their sports TV schedule printed every day. They know their regulars and what TVs they like to watch, and they made note of it every day. So, when those folks walked in, their game was already on and their drink was usually poured before they even sat down.
Crossroads is basically a real life Cheers. Everybody does know your name, but they took it a step further with the motto. Anyone who’s ever spent time there will tell you they’ve met lifelong friends there from a starting point of complete strangers. It was some of the best networking in town. Every profession, from the sweatiest blue collar to the freshest pressed white collar, hung out there, elbow to elbow. All ages. All backgrounds. All political beliefs. Business owners, nurses, lawyers, plumbers, shop managers, train kids, fishermen, Slopers and politicians. Didn’t matter. If you were a Crossroads regular or just passed through every now and then, you were in the club, and you knew it was something special.
Rittenberg: I used to ride the No. 13 bus home, and it would go past the Carr’s there and would drop me off. I lived on the east side, and I didn’t have a car. I was 23, and I was in AmeriCorps. I was poor — AmeriPoor as they call it.
The bus would drop me off there, and for three bucks, I could get a PBR, and as many hot dogs and as much soup as I could eat. That was my dinner, like, two or three nights a week. That’s how I met most of the people at Crossroads, and then I ended up moving to Fairview and lived there for 10, 12 years or so before I sold out and bought a house.
What’s the ideal scene at Crossroads?
Tom Marriage: It’s snowed three feet, and the roads are all desolate. And you pull up to Crossroads, and there’s only three cars there, and it’s all the diehards who didn’t want to be cooped up in their place. It’s all the regulars. And we sit there and we play TouchTunes, and we literally have the greatest day of our life, laughing and sharing stories, just completely uninhibited, just pure, honest connection.
Favorite memories?
Cail Hubert: Good old Dave, our captain of our softball team. His post-wedding party was a pretty fun experience. We all went there afterward and stormed the bar. He rang the bell. That was a good night.
Rittenberg: After my wedding, we’re driving back from the wildlife center and we just asked the bus driver to drop us all off at Crossroads. I mean, we called the bar ahead of time — we’re not assholes — and since I was a regular, they scheduled an extra person. It was one of the only times I rang the bell. And that was expensive.
Joshua McKennett: I mean, they’re all pretty vague and gray, you know. But there were some good foosball tournaments there. I snuck into the girls’ bathroom with my girlfriend, and got caught making out. I gave a guy a hot dog because I lost a bet.
Marriage: I remember one time, I’d just had surgery, like, six days before, and I thought I’d stopped taking the pain pills like three days before. My friend picked me up, and we went, and I had a couple of drinks, and I ended up taking out the foosball table — because I guess the the medicine was still a little bit in my system. Luckily I didn’t tear the major stomach surgery I just had.
One Sunday, I brought in a cinnamon roll, and cut it up and was offering it to everybody, was talking about my job, and all of a sudden this girl crossed the bar and was just like, ‘I’m sorry, I have so many questions. What do you do?’ And we have now been dating for nine months.
Bartender Aislinn Martinson: Oh, my gosh. I can’t even tell you. How about the time I threw a trash can at somebody for harassing my regulars at the bar? And my patrons chased them outside where the cops arrested them.
Tell us about the hot dogs.
Hubert: Back in my younger years, I used to live off of those things before I got a real job. There’s nothing quite like a 12-hour marinated dog after a 9 p.m. Crossroads softball game. It makes you feel a lot better the next day.
Haley Rentz: Most of my life, I was strictly vegetarian, vegan, so I didn’t consume as many dogs as others may have. Sometimes they were fresh. Other times there was some funky beer water going on. But I’ve seen them consumed at all hours of the day and night, so they’re a true staple.
What about the bartenders?
Jensen: They really are the best. You have to be, if you’re going to greet people with, ‘Hey, fuckface,’ and they laugh.
One thing that always stuck out to me was that it was a women-owned, women-run business, and I watched them ride through so much stuff over the years. All the permitting crap to keep Sunday football breakfast going, the fire, COVID closures and lockdowns, inflation and all that bullshit, to kicking out the occasional derelict. The women of Crossroads did it all with nothing but strength and smiles. They made a place that everyone already loved even better, and we’re all going to miss that.
How do you see your life changing now that Crossroads is gone?
Jensen: It’s different. It’s weird when you go somewhere else and see a fellow Crossroads refugee trying to get a drink. But it’s summer and there’s plenty to do. Probably won’t really hit until football season when we’re all wondering where to go.
Rentz: As we’re dispersing and kind of finding our ways around town, we all have something in common, in losing our go-to place.
Hubert: It’s greatly missed. Because we don’t have that spot any more. Crossroads, you’ll always be in our hearts — but also in our livers probably, too.
Martinson: I love all these people. We’re always going to keep being in contact, and we are always going to be friends, and they’re always going to be my neighbors. I’m just going to miss Crossroads so hard. It was my favorite bar to work in, and I’m never going to give up on these people. These are my favorite people.
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