CULTURE

Anyone Who Visits Eris Cocktail Lounge Five Times Gets a Place on the Bathroom Wall for Their Cat

“If you come in five days in a row and then never show up again, your cat will still be on the wall.”

By Matthew Korfhage
Eris Cocktail Lounge Eris Cocktail Lounge (Chris Nesseth)

Eris Cocktail Lounge owner Tony Pepe devoted his bar, and his bathroom, to chaos. What he got instead was community. Or maybe just a clowder. “Eris is the goddess of chaos,” Pepe says, “and cats are the purest form of chaos in the world.” The first cat on the Eris bathroom wall was Schrodinger’s, courtesy of sci-fi author Robert Anton Wilson—part of a motley collection of nerd lore ranging from multiple Kyle McLachlans to a glowering painting of Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters 2. The next two cat pictures belonged to Pepe and his closest friend. When the bar opened, Pepe asked in lieu of gifts for pictures of his friends’ cats as well. Each chaotic feline went up on the wall, each in its own sparkle frame. Customers started asking how they, too, could get their cats on the wall. And so the rule was born: Anyone who comes into the bar five times gets bathroom rights for their feline. “If you come in five days in a row and then never show up again, your cat will still be on the wall,” Pepe says. When the walls finally fill up, it’s not a problem. The cats will simply move to the ceiling.

817 SE 34th Ave.

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Matthew Korfhage

Matthew Korfhage

Matthew Korfhage has lived in St. Louis, Chicago, Munich and Bordeaux, but comes from Portland, where he makes guides to the city and writes about food, booze and books. He likes the Oxford comma but can't use it in the newspaper.

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