Jive and Wail

I love the new dueling piano bar, the Jive and Wail, which is in Maplewood. Hubby and I were there on opening night in September, which happened to be our wedding anniversary. We were brought there that night by a happy coincidence.

I had read info on the web about this dueling piano bar coming to Maplewood. I was interested to go, but hadn't heard/seen much about an open date. Then one day, I was inside a Bread Company near my work, standing in line waiting to make my lunch order. There was a fellow in front of me who turned to me and said he was originally from the east coast, and now lived in Florida, but everywhere he had ever been, the Bread Company was called Panera Bread Company, while here in St. Louis it was called St. Louis Bread Company. He wondered aloud to me why that was. I said that it's because they are headquartered here and while they tried to change the name in this area, I think they must have gotten some feedback about it from St. Louisans who didn't like the change, so it still remains St. Louis Bread Company. So after that, we talked for a couple of minutes and he told me he was in town to play piano at the Jive and Wail and invited me. I told him I had heard about it before, but didn't know it was open yet, and he said that very night was going to be their soft open, so I should come on down.

So, hubby and I made it there that night after dinner, and it was a great time, even if there weren't that many people there that first night. We really loved it from the beginning. I had never been to a dueling piano bar before, so it was a new experience and one that I enjoyed much more than I expected I would. It's just a great time to sing along to songs played live for you by two folks on pianos -- amazing to watch/hear them sing and pluck these songs out on the piano with no sheet music!

Well here it is going on a couple of months now since that first night, and this place has gone nuts -- it's so busy now we can barely get into the place ourselves!

We stopped in again last night because the pianist I mentioned above, Matt Nichols, was playing. It was good to see him again; very nice guy. If you get a chance you should go see him -- he'll be playing there now through New Year's Eve. Here's a pic of me and him from last night. He had the cutest t-shirt on that you can see in the pic -- Linus playing on the piano with Snoopy watching and the word "PLAYER" underneath. Clever.