One last Bump & Grind
Ever eaten at the Bump & Grind? If so, then you’re probably well familiar with the funky uptown institution and its delicious breakfast and lunch dishes with names like the Mexican Benedict Arnold and the Kevin Bacon Panini. Ever eaten there on a Saturday or Sunday? If so, then you’re probably well familiar with getting cock-slapped.
For as many a brunch-hopping Denverite already knows, Bump & Grind employs a small squadron of drag-queen waitresses on the weekends, all stubbled and surly and slutted-up as they serve your meal when they get around to it, offering tasty dishes of double entendre in the interim.
Some people are turned off by the concept—it ain’t the place to take your Republican grandma—but most people check their PC blazers at the door and enjoy the utterly ridiculous experience for what it is: a lascivious laugh while you feed away your hangover, a final outrageous guffaw at the world before heading back to work the next day.
Or should I say that’s what Bump & Grind was—the insanely popular restaurant will shut its doors next month. Chef and owner Cliff Trubowitz is moving on to other pastures, his fishnet-stocking-clad, mustachioed waitresses forced to find another line of work. Ideally it'd be one where they can sexually harass the customers and talk about penises and anal-fisting, but most likely it will be at more conservative institutions. Or adult book stores. One such waitress is Dixie Normous, a.k.a. local comedian Greg Baumhauer, a.k.a. my friend and oft-partner in petty crime. As the doors at the Bump & Grind shutter, their hinges squeaking closed with one final “mmmkay, girlfriend,” so too will Greg hang up his signature horsy-head cock sock. And the city of Denver will be worse off for it. And by worse, I mean better. But we’ll always have the memories, won’t we Greg?
“We will, Adam,” Greg said to me. “Now cease your girlish weeping. You know that’s the exact reason your father is so ashamed of you. Hush now, tiny friend. And, of course, you may share with your legions of fans some of my many favorite memories.”
Thank you, Greg.
A tale Greg likes to tell, and that I always enjoy hearing, is the time he gave a birthday lap-dance to a very attractive half-Japanese, half-Cuban woman, a type of woman that, as Greg explained, he “didn’t even know they made.” Excited by his new discovery, Greg’s Little Greg had risen to the occasion, leaving what Greg calls “a DNA snail-trail” (ahem, pre-cum) on the leg of her pants. Ever quick-thinking, Greg turned to wipe off his anticipatory outpouring with his backside, and then quickly he changed the subject.
“So, what do you do for a living?” he stammered.
“I’m a lawyer,” she responded.
“Oh, that’s really interesting. What kind of law do you practice?”
“Mostly sexual harassment.”
For the rest of the day, Greg repeated the prayer, “Please don't get murdered,” lest his DNA be all over the crime scene.
Disgusting? Yes. Par for the course at Bump & Grind? Absolutely.
Or who can forget the many times that Greg, smoking in drag out front, would silence gawking popped-collars by revealing the horsy cock-sock under his skirt and screaming, “What are you looking at, faggot?!” And then Greg would just snicker as their synapses fused.
Or the time Greg told a homophobic wrestler he would hit him in the cauliflower ear with his dick if he didn’t put his “hands up in the air.” And as the guy cocked back to take a swing, Greg defused the situation by screaming, “Hate crime! Hate crime!”
Ah, the good times they rolled at 17th and Pennsylvania, but now the makers of those good times must roll on as well, for it is the rolling stone that gathers no STDs. Or maybe it’s the one that gathers the most STDs. Not really sure. But what I am sure of is if you’ve never experienced the Bump & Grind, now’s your last chance. The mornings I spent in that restaurant were always a blast. They bumped and they grinded and the Dixies were always enormous.
