Wicked Slice of Paradise
April 26th, 2006
By Archived Story
“I’ll have the Paralyzed Polynesian.” Our waitress (who looked like Maggie Gyllenhall with tattoo sleeves and half-inch wide black spikes through her ears) showed up before I really had a chance to fully peruse the drink menu. Fortunately, Psycho Suzi’s has devised an ingenious drink ordering system. One can simply drag his or her finger across the mixed drink section of the menu until he or she arrives at the tiki man illustration that represents his or her desired level of drunkenness. I chose the tiki man who had lost his pants.
Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge is an odd oasis after a jaunt deep into Northeast Minneapolis. An old A & W restaurant-turned tiki bar, it boasts vaguely authentic island decor, complete with giant red-eyed wood carvings and thick wicker-hatched tiki huts just waiting to go up in flames from patio patrons’ cigarettes. The drink menu ranges from “trailer wine” to “fancy pants wine,” champagne in a can, and wicked concoctions served in “stupid mugs with tacky garnishes for you to ponder.” (I got a little orange monkey—insert squeal of delight here.) They also have an award-winning, foodgasm-inducing pizza menu. We ordered the Fastback, an artichoke, spinach, tomato, and white wine garlic sauce covered pie that just about made me have to change my shorts.
The menus make for interesting reading material, ripe with thinly veiled insults and cheeky footnotes. The price range is fair, no fifty cent taps, but you won’t dump out your wallet either. Mug bandits are deterred by a $4 deposit on all tantalizing beverage containers, which you may choose to forgo at the end of the evening if you cannot bear to part with your ceramic Easter Island head.
The crowd is crust punk, motorcycles and muscle cars, and the tunes are Ozzy Osbourne meets Styx meets the Electric Light Orchestra. Peering through the patio doorway I could see that our jukebox hero was a hyper Billy Idol with extra spike collar and extra jean jacket vest. As an engine snarled and tore out of the adjacent carport, I almost shat myself.
