How do you get the regulars, the real regulars, to come out in such numbers to anywhere new? Restaurateurs sort of love and hate the new-restaurant-regulars crowd-they bring a lot of cash, but they disappear like spring crocuses, never to be seen again. You see them at every restaurant that’s been open 30 years running. And these were: the regulars-like the regulars in the Replacements song. Wait! The restaurant only opened at Christmastime. I saw a gentleman, sporting a Harris Tweed trilby hat with a jaunty spray of bright feathers popping from the hatband, nosing eagerly through the crowd like a salmon delighted to fight up the home stream. I saw a retirement party for teachers, complete with Mylar balloons bumping against the low painted drop ceiling. Instead of the usual suspects, I identified a guy with Robert Wagner hair and sharp-creased leather that looked like it sprang straight from the costume closet of Hart to Hart (1979–1984). I leaned on the funny vinyl pad on the customer edge of the bar-that sort of low-cost, comfy thing I’ve only ever seen at old dives and never anywhere new-and I watched the house fill up-Ronettes playing on the sound system and popover baskets hitting every table. None of the usual suspects were anywhere to be seen! Odd. Unable to score a reservation for a table at the new Creekside Supper Club and Lounge in south Minneapolis, I crept in early one evening and sat at the bar. Wood-paneled walls, framed embroidery-does any part of you believe this room is brand new? Pinch yourself: It is! Now treat your disbelief to an ice cream drink-you earned it.