It’s been a few years, but I’ll never forget the first time I stepped into Windsor’s Phog Lounge.

It was a cool late April night about three years ago and I had just finished moving to the Rose City earlier that day. I had just accepted a position as an intern for the Windsor Star, my first paying job at a newspaper. I must have slept on a few lucky horseshoes earlier that year since there was very little chance I would get the job, given that I had very little experience working as a journalist.

Still, luck prevailed and I suddenly found myself renting out a sublet apartment downtown near University and Ouelette above Milk (an excellent coffeeshop, by the way). I knew no one in the city so I decided to kill some time and drown my sorrows away at a nearby pub.

Phog was literally across the street from my apartment so it finding a bar proved to be an easy choice to make. Not a lot of people were in the place when I got there – a cramped 60-person max dingy room that looked more like a rundown basement apartment than a rock club that hosted live bands daily. Nevertheless,  I pulled up a stool at the bar and beckoned to Frank, one of the owners was tending the place, to pour me a drink. I smoked a couple cigarettes, idly chatted with my neighbour, a friendly girl whose face I really can’t place, drank some more and called it a night.

Now that I think about it, there was really nothing spectacular about my first time at Windsor’s Phog Lounge.

Still, the sucker in me kept going, aided by the fact that there was really no other interesting bars around my apartment and the clientele, a mix of psuedo-indie hipsters and aging studio musicians, seemed to feel like my type of crowd. Soon enough, I met Tom Lucier, the other owner of Phog and instantly struck a friendship. The first time I met him, Tom pulled out Phog’s quote book and started reciting some memorable quotes either he, Frank or a bar regular uttered inside Phog, most of which had that “You had to be there” sort of vibe. But Tom’s loud, hearty laugh was infectious and soon all those quotes were knee-slappers. He’s also a contributor to The National Post’s The Ampersand blog.

I found myself coming back to Phog almost every day, sometimes immediately after work (it helped that the Windsor Star’s building was located two blocks away). I began to familiarize myself with Phog’s regulars and soon enough, a lot of them became good friends of mine. Phog began to host a number of burgeoning live acts on its small, claustrophobic stage. I saw bands like Tokyo Police Club play for a couple Bordens to a handful of people to Owen Pallett’s Final Fantasy perform to a packed, sold-out audience.

I spent almost every day I lived in Windsor at Phog. It didn’t matter if it was for five minutes or five hours – the people at Phog were my family in a town where I had none. Needless to say, I spent my last day in Windsor holed up at Phog, a stiff gin and tonic in my hand, much like I used to have throughout that summer.

On Thursday, Tom, Frank and the Phog Lounge was named Canada’s best live music venue by the listeners of CBC Radio 3, beating out other stellar entries from Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and even my hometown of Waterloo. The win is a testament to Tom’s tireless work in the Windsor art community, valid proof that being a tireless and selfless supporter of local culture can pay off.

For a town that’s been down on its luck with enough bad stories to count, the honour couldn’t have gone to a well-deserved bunch of guys. Congrats.