Columbia's 'Viking' community

These Vikings aren't marauding and pillaging. They're donating to charity and having a good time doing it.

By Andrew Denney

Published May 5, 2009

A north Columbia bar that is a bit off the beaten path -- at least in terms of where students usually drunkenly stumble when they're looking to kill a few brain cells -- has been revamped to accommodate a different kind of crowd.

The Viking Club, located at 701 Big Bear Blvd. and formerly known as the Hide A Way Club, was "run into the ground" owner Rick Branson said. That was before he bought the place in September 2007 and turned it into a membership-only, non-profit club. Students who have used the Greyhound might have noticed the bar right next door to the bus station.

Although many still refer to the small bar by its old handle, which remains on the bar's mailbox and phone bills, Branson says the troublemakers and the violence that once plagued the establishment, as well as its reputation as a biker haunt, have all disappeared under new management.

Branson, who works construction in Columbia, says the club has about 200 members ranging in age from late twenties to retirees. Like any local Elks Lodge or VFW post, the Viking donates proceeds to local charities, and Branson says the bar has paid particularly close attention to the Central Missouri Humane Society, which is right across the street. They are also a booster club for Hickman High School.

"Everyone should feel like they're coming in and really doing something for the community," Branson says.

An annual membership to the club is $25, which affords cheap drinks and free use of the bar's parlor games, such as pool and darts.

"We throw steel tipped darts down there," Branson emphasizes.

It also buys you a free dinner every weekend, provided by the bar, and the chance to hang out with a tightly knit, working class crowd that's familiar with each other and friendly to outsiders, bartender Tony Hudson says.

Branson says the club doesn't accept felons, and that he allows those interested to attend the bar two or three times before he asks them if they want to be a member. Hudson says Branson is not especially pushy about getting patrons to pay for a membership.

"He could turn people away," Hudson says. "But he doesn't."

The working class atmosphere becomes quickly apparent to first-time visitors when they hear the classic rock blasting from the jukebox or when they talk a little with the regulars who have just punched out from a long day of laying concrete. Or when they read the sticker slapped on to the mirror in the men's bathroom that exclaims, "NASCAR makes my dick trickle."

Although the change in atmosphere at the club has caused it to cease being a biker joint, it has not dissuaded area residents who travel by motorcycle from stopping in on a Tuesday afternoon to enjoy $1 domestic drafts and $2 well drinks.

Branson says the club also boasts doctors and judges as members and, while he says he does not aim to attract a young, college crowd to the club, students are certainly welcome to come in.

"We're just a quiet little bar that's under the radar," he says.

Columbia resident Tina Lindsey, a member of the club who attended MU from 1979 to 1983, says what had once been a "rowdy place" has been turned friendly under Branson's ownership.

"You can sit there and just get trashed, and someone will take care of you," Lindsey says.

Hudson, who says he has worked in the Columbia bar scene for 20 years, says he does not get paid for his work at the club, but he does it to help Branson, who he calls the most generous bartender in town.

"He's got a real family-oriented clientele," Hudson says. He also says that it's not uncommon for members to pitch in and help clean the place at the end of the night.

Lynn Ennis, a Columbia resident who was on her second visit to the club since its change in ownership, says the family-type atmosphere made it comfortable to come by herself, which she says she doesn't normally do.

"They won't let you wait too long if you want another drink," Ennis says after a sip of her gin and sweet and sour.