Looking for short stories set in a bar.

[commasense]

@madmonk28

Hemingway’s A Clean, Well Lighted Place is set in a café where two waiters speculate about the only patron in the place, a lonely old man.

I came in to say this. It’s considered one of the finest short stories ever written.

[pinoyka]

@Nightfall1

Hello my Straight Dope friends. I enjoy reading short stories of a group of friends sitting around telling each other stories. I’ve read

Asimov’s
Azazel fantasy stories
The Black Widower Mystery stories
The Union Club Mysteries

Clarkes
Tales from the White Hart

Spider Robinson’s
Callahan Crosstime Saloon

de Camp and Pratt’s
Tales from Gavagan’s Bar

Does anyone have other suggestions? I like mystery, science fiction, fantasy and anything in between. Thank you all.

All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein

[Morgyn]

@Meurglys

If you can find a copy, there’ a tribute volume to Arthur C. Clarke and his Tales From the White Hart conceived of shortly after his death, called Fables From the Fountain.
It’s edited by Ian Whates and includes the likes of Charles Stross, Ian Watson & Neil Gaiman.
It consists of 18 tall tales, as if told by a group of authors at their regular meet-ups in an old London pub.

<ears perk> Sounds interesting.
<googles>
<checks Amazon>
<starts swearing>
How does a KINDLE book go out of stock?

ETA: The paperback version is available.

[Kimstu]

I seem to be doing nothing but citing P.G. Wodehouse today, but he’s apropos here too: his Mr. Mulliner short stories are all inflicted by the eponymous raconteur upon his drinking companions, usually in the Angler’s Rest pub.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@burpo_the_wonder_mutt

Cripes, Stephen King has more than I can list.

The Breathing Method
The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands…

Those are both set in an elegant but oddly menacing gentleman’s club and not a bar, aren’t they?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Elendil_s_Heir

Those are both set in an elegant but oddly menacing gentleman’s club and not a bar, aren’t they?

As is often the case, the thread title and the text of the OP are not asking for exactly the same thing; and some people are responding to one, some to the other.

[burpo_the_wonder_mutt]

Thank you, T. Boink. A bunch of the other King stories (in particular, the Castle Rock stories) are told in a general store, on a porch, or some similar venue, so, yeah, I was playing fast and loose with “bar.” But usually, alcohol is involved.

[Mike_Mabes]

@commasense

I came in to say this. It’s considered one of the finest short stories ever written.

You both beat me to it. Read it when I was about 16. Now I am the old waiter. But I do have confidence now.

[Dendarii_Dame]

If stories told in a gentlemen’s club by “an old man trying to cadge a drink” as the author puts it count, then the Jorkens stories by Lord Dunsany fit this category. They’ve been collected recently under the title The Collected Jorkens, in three volumes.

I haven’t read any of them yet, but I plan to. I’m reading The King of Elfland’s Daughter, and Lord Dunsany can really write.

[DPRK]

@Dendarii_Dame

If stories told in a gentlemen’s club by “an old man trying to cadge a drink” as the author puts it count, then the Jorkens stories by Lord Dunsany fit this category. They’ve been collected recently under the title The Collected Jorkens, in three volumes.

Afanasyev’s collected tales (modelled after Grimm’s) can be regarded like that. He even left in some lines where the narrator complains his throat is a bit dry…

[Nightfall1]

Hi everyone. Even though I said stories taking place in a bar I was thinking anyplace where friends gather to tell tall tales. Thanks.

[burpo_the_wonder_mutt]

This is a stretch:

In Richard Adams’s, “Watership Down,” the rabbits tell each other tall tales; I think there are at least three “short stories” scattered throughout the novel (One of the stories is the opening narration of the 1978 animated movie.) Telling successful stories is a badge of honor amongst the lagomorphs.

[Peter_Morris]

@Nightfall1

Hi everyone. Even though I said stories taking place in a bar I was thinking anyplace where friends gather to tell tall tales. Thanks.

The first Miss Marple stories were like this.

The Thirteen Problems | Plot introduction

[gkster]

@Nightfall1

Hi everyone. Even though I said stories taking place in a bar I was thinking anyplace where friends gather to tell tall tales. Thanks.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Some of the pilgrims are friends travelling together; others have met by chance, and they all gather to tell tales, tall or not, in the inns on their way from London to Canterbury.