by Jeffrey R. Sipe

As soon as you walk in, you think maybe you've been there before. Is it the multiple big screen TVs alternating between sports and music videos, especially those that your middle-aged friends gravitate toward? Or is it the photographic portraits of local legends and global music stars that cover one wall? Or the hockey jersey hanging on another wall? Or the lamp behind the bar that shines "No Street Girls or Sailors"? Or Joan Jett belting out "I love rock n roll" while Jalen Williams sinks another three-pointer? Or the multi-accented English and Spanish spoken by the patrons?

Whatever it is, it feels like you've been there before. And that's the point.

"I wanted to open a bar that you would find in any city in the world," explained the eponymous proprietor of Kenny's Place, the Guadalupe sports bar across the street from Tienda Gil on Calle Julian Carrillo. "I get photos all the time from friends around the world who are sitting in bars that look exactly like this and I ask them where they are, and they write back, 'We're at Kenny's in Helsinki'. I love that."

Kenny Peters, born in Ontario to the grandson of Serbian immigrants – his grandfather changed the family name from Petrovic after arriving in Canada -- and his Scottish wife, had his first taste of Mexico on family trips when he was a kid and as an adult there was never any doubt in his mind: "I always knew I was going to come here for good," he said.

After an engineering career with a subsidiary of Ford Motors in Ontario, Kenny pulled up stakes, hooked up with an old friend and made his way to Vera Cruz. From there, Kenny struck out on his own, opening small businesses like laundromats and small restaurants in Oaxaca and ultimately Acapulco. "We did pretty well," he said of his initial forays into small business.

After eight years, however, Acapulco was edging into chaos and in 2010, the writing was on the wall. Word was that there was an up-and-coming little place in Guanajuato that could be the perfect refuge and business opportunity after the near collapse of Acapulco.

He made the move to San Miguel in 2010, but it would be another ten years before he opened the doors to Kenny's Place. Soon after arriving, he gutted an art gallery on Calle Hidalgo and turned it into DiMartini's Little House of Blues. "I always wanted to run a blues bar and that was it. We'd have music all the time. Everybody played there back then – Johnny, Woody, Chuey, Miguel."

The DiMartini's part of the name came from a bar in Canada with the same name that was run by an old friend. "I always liked that name," Kenny explained. "I thought it was really clever to combine 'Dean Martin' with 'martini'."

Kenny sold the popular bar to an artist-neighbor who had been delivering food to the bar for years. He watched how the bar worked, liked the look of things and made an offer. Today, DiMartini's continues to be operated successfully in its home under the ownership of the artist/food guy on Hidalgo, almost unchanged from the days of its founder.

With the sale of DiMartini's, Kenny moved across the street to Bond, a rooftop theme bar based on the popular series of books by Ian Fleming and the Chubby Broccoli produced 007 classics. Kenny refers to it as a theme bar with paraphernalia connected to the UK's most famous spy, but Trip Advisor reviews from the time point out its view of the city, its TVs showing sporting events and the friendly barman, i.e., Kenny, as the main attractions. Not all that different – minus the view – from Kenny's Place today.

It's tempting to call Kenny's Place a gringo bar or a sports bar but, at least, a third of its customers are Mexican and the rest come not only from the US, Canada and Europe but from other Central and South American countries. There is a certain coterie that comprises regulars and often a healthy dose of first timers who came to the bar through Travel Advisor or some other site. They are readily welcomed and quickly behave like regulars, some readily calling out the officials for what they consider bad calls. Though generally well-behaved, patrons can get a little raucous, at times. My favorite was the woman from Texas who announced, "He can eat the shit out of my ass!" when disagreeing with an official.

Kenny takes a pretty laissez faire approach to his customers. "I know people can get excited and really passionate about their teams," he said, "but sometimes I have to step in and tell somebody to relax."

On game days – particularly for Europe-based football and rugby tournaments – Kenny finds himself serving drinks early in the morning to a packed house. If you happen to arrive for a drink early one evening and the doors are closed, chances are that Kenny had been there since daybreak and decided to call it a day at sunset. After all, it's called Kenny's Place for a reason.

Kenny's Place - Julián Carrillo 7, Guadalupe, 415-149-6064

******

Jeffrey R. Sipe is a writer/journalist, who, no matter how hard he writes, having grown up in Speedway, Indiana, still can’t get the sounds of race cars rounding Turn 4 out of his head. He has written about the film industry for Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Sight and Sound, The Financial Times and other publications. He also once worked as the “boom guy” on a film that nobody saw, but he challenges everyone to see just how long they can hold a metal tube with a microphone attached over their heads.

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