The bar also is situated on the new gravel-road loop July 20 as part of the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. This weekend he brings Jon Dee Graham on the same night (July 5) that the Dead play their final gig.īyron's big annual street dance arrives July 11. Canned Heat was his most crowded.įellow Iowans Joe and Vicki Price typically play for his birthday.įamily Groove Company immortalized his bar in a song, "Byron's Got the Time." Todd Snider was Stuart's first national act. But as a Type 2 diabetic who has shed 70 pounds in recent months, Stuart's drug of choice on this afternoon was one cup of coffee after another, laced with packets of Stevia. He can't believe that medical marijuana isn't legal nationwide. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. Stuart lives in the house he inherited from his parents with his partner, Roger Feldhans, a former tie-dye artist turned photographer. "You don't discuss politics or religion in a bar," as he put it. Stuart steadily has fashioned his own liberal counterculture oasis here, although he likes to avoid controversy. There's a jigsaw-cut wood version of "steal your face." And the Deadhead take on Grant Wood's "American Gothic." Two large wooden display cases hold everything from a Woodstock ticket to Deadhead cookie cutters. More dancing bears dangle behind the bar. But there also are Gonzo dolls (Stuart's favorite Muppet). Today the 1,500 or so square feet of Byron's look as if one of those rainbow-colored dancing bears stumbled inside one night and projectile-vomited in every direction - and then hung concert posters on the drop ceiling. The bar quickly became a paraphernalia magnet. (That gives new meaning to "ripple in still water," I told Stuart, and got a guffaw out of him.)īut a week before the bar's grand opening, a few local women bestowed Stuart with a housewarming gift of a framed T-shirt emblazoned with Jerry Garcia's beaming face.
He didn't intend to create a Dead shrine, down to the familiar "steal your face" skull logo on the toilet seat covers. He bought it 19 years ago for all of $17,000 in an auction. Stuart began tending bar 35 years ago in the same 122-year-old building he now owns. When his dad suffered a heart attack, Stuart returned home after college to help farm.
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That was his jam-band stepping stone to full Deadhead status. He spent seven years at Iowa State University in Ames, where friends introduced him to the Allman Brothers Band.
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