As I stood on the sidewalk of Bascom Avenue, looking westward at Highway 85, the post-storm darkness of the evening made me think of Double Vision. Then I went down a rabbit hole of research.
This stretch of 85 first opened 30 years ago, destroying houses, orchards, golf ranges and indie businesses in the process. One of those joints was a legendary dive bar, Double Vision, which sat on Bascom in a janky strip exactly where 85 now plows across the landscape.
At Double Vision, there was a door, along with an overhang that looked like it was already on life support. No windows. The sign featured the name of the bar, a double-vision type of font, along with the words “The finest in spirits.” Everyone knew that sign.
Next door was Samaritan Florist, with its own funky yellow sign, plus a handful of other businesses. That was it. The rest of the building was colorless and faded.
I don’t remember the inside of Double Vision, but thanks to a 1989 article in the Mercury News—back when that paper cared about dive bars instead of annoying real estate articles—we have a masterful portrait of one Mr. Billy Du Pont, who had just passed away after bartending in the valley for 36 years.
At that time, when people could still smoke in bars and when the plans for Highway 85 were just starting to ruffle a few feathers, a young Tom Philp led his Merc story with these fine words:
“Billy Du Pont of San Jose was a bartender who called himself ‘the last of the iron men in wooden ships.’ He smoked unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes and drank Budweiser longnecks when he worked, and gin when he didn’t.”
Other than a couple years in the army during World War II, Du Pont’s only job was tending bar. It’s all he ever did. According to Philp’s profile, Du Pont refused to make blended foo-foo drinks and he never answered the bar’s phone, no matter how long it rang.
“I’ve never sold a drink over the phone,” he was quoted in the story.
Despite his gruff exterior, Du Pont was a kind, gentle dude. He left saucers of milk for the stray cats that wandered around Los Gatos Boulevard. He also commanded a loyal following of customers that came to see him wherever he worked.
Yet Philp’s newspaper story is not just a posthumous profile of one particular bartender. It’s also a history lesson about various neighborhood bars that are no longer with us.
Of Du Pont and his wife, Philp wrote: “The couple met in Duluth, Minn., where both were working at a resort. They headed to San Jose in 1953 when a friend had bought a now-defunct establishment, the Red Coach Inn.”
Philp continued: “Mr. Du Pont over the years tended other bars—the now-defunct Sapphire Lounge on First Street in San Jose, the Los Gatos Lodge and the Country Oak in Los Gatos.”
At the time of Philp’s 1989 story, Country Oak, a dimly lit steak restaurant with an even dimmer bar area, still existed on Union Avenue, just south of Los Gatos-Almaden Road. That place I do remember, only because my dad drank there. During my early teens, my mom and I had to go pick him up once or twice. It’s now a series of squeaky-clean townhomes.
I also remember another establishment mentioned in the story—Otto’s Garden Room, a notorious biker bar staggering distance from Double Vision. The Gatos cops always seemed to set their sights on Otto’s. It was that kind of place. In the ’90s, Otto’s became the Boulevard Tavern, surviving all the way up until about five years ago. Again, townhomes, condos and real estate developers rule the landscape, while dive bars are becoming forgotten folklore.
But back to the current moment. Right now, Philp is up in Sacto with a Pulitzer under his belt and I am standing on the sidewalk, where Bascom fades into Los Gatos Boulevard, looking at the westward expanse of 85 as it tears through the darkness.
No problem. I am OK with the darkness. Just like Double Vision, I have the finest of spirits. Nothing is permanent and I am grateful for rabbit holes.
