High Point Pub draws people in with its cheap-beer charm and makes them stay with the cast of characters who frequent it. The jukebox casts neon light on a shuffleboard table that is covered in such a layer of sand it looks like the set of “Dune”. The floor makes a sound like duct tape being yanked off plastic when you walk. 

There is a wide variety of only one thing, and that thing is beer. The “beertenders” (not bartenders, since there is no liquor) stand silhouetted before a fridge that showcases Guinness, PBR, and some local sours and IPAs that none of the regulars ever drink.  

The bar top is smooth linoleum, and sliding a drink down to a patron ready for a cold brew is as effortless as in a video game tavern. I’ve only seen one beer fall off the bar, and there was an uproar when we realized it landed straight up anyway. Not a single drop had spilled. Amy, who was working at the time, said it seemed God took a special interest in that particular beer and so made it free of charge. 

Outside is an alley that echoes every sound back to you five times over and when it feels sticky outside because of rain and Memphis heat the alley is a haven. It smells like the next-door pizza being cooked and stale cigarettes, which is slightly nauseating but after a while feels like home. There is a combination florist and coffee shop directly across from the pub that opened at the very beginning of the pandemic and then, of course, closed. There is still an arrangement of pink/purple/blue fake flowers above the giant window which would theoretically open like a barn door. There are neon lights outside, too, and when it’s dark enough they reflect off the fake flowers and window and cast eerie shadows on people’s faces.  

I don’t believe any place’s slogan has been truer: “It’s small, it’s hip, it’s cheap... but it’s mostly small.”