Goodbye, “Mecks”
On the day of the very first FC Cincinnati home match, shortly after Die Innenstadt had been founded, we gathered at a brewery in the city’s Over-The-Rhine neighborhood. Kicking off the first supporter’s group march, we eventually had to climb the Ohio Ave. steps all the way up Bellevue Hill. While regrouping for a breather at the top, everyone took turns passing around and polishing off a bottle of Four Roses in a pre-covid, desperate frenzy to have something to drink. Eventually, as we got closer to the uptown stadium, we merged with the other supporters groups and then welcomed FC Cincinnati to the Queen City for the first time.
That aforementioned brewery was and is a cool place, but it’s also the kind of spot that’s a bit more geared towards pedal-wagon riding bachelor/bachelorette parties. And if you’re not there for one of those, I think you’re required to bring your kids with you so that they can run around unsupervised. It didn’t really work out for our specific group of soccer fans, but thankfully, another place did. And they had perfect timing—reaching out just as we were realizing that the brewery was defining a concept I’d eventually come to describe as “Millennial Applebee’s.”
Mecklenburg Gardens was the new-to-us, but definitely not new-to-the-city, pre-match meeting spot. Boasting a renowned beer garden, the oldest restaurant in the city became our place. One where we kicked off marches (that mercifully no longer required a massive uphill climb), made countless connections, and drank a lot of beer. The owners and staff were wonderful people.
People who soon became friends.
Friends who eventually felt like family.
Tim the bartender ghost.
The shade of that beer garden was always an incredible locale to find yourself on a humid, summer match day—a spot packed to the brim with kind people clinking glasses together.
I have a lot of great memories as an FC Cincinnati fan, but no matter how good the scoreline was, the true highlight of my day was the time spent hanging out at “Mecks.” Whether it was the stumbling conversations before a match, or, the aggressively competitive UNO games (with their made up rules and cheating) that occurred afterwards.
I could go on and on about stories from there, but my buddy Jared summed it up best awhile ago. Remember when Michael Scott quoted himself quoting Wayne Gretzky on The Office?
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
- Wayne Gretzky
- Michael Scott
Jared kind of did that once. But it was truly poignant and relevant. Specifically quoting the character of Andy Bernard from The Office one day, he stood in the beer garden and said of FC Cincinnati’s rise through the American soccer landscape and the growth of its fandom:
“I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”
- Andy Bernard
- Jared Handra
From that point on, I took stock of every moment at Meck’s (although I’m sure I immediately forgot most of them while running up tabs). Still, what I do have left, is a nostalgia that I don’t look back upon with regretful lament, but rather, full admiration.
FC Cincinnati eventually built their own stadium in another neighborhood, traditions evolved, and folks came and went. I don’t even have season tickets anymore. I still love the team, Die Innenstadt, and the folks who keep it all going today—but life changes. And Mecklenburg Gardens did too. It was sold and shuttered. Now sitting in limbo until new ownership decides what’s next.
Numerous friends and I were able have one more night there. The photographs I made that evening show Mecklenburg Gardens as I knew it. Just a brief chapter in many that date back to 1865. Hopefully the next one for Meck’s will be just as good (and maybe one that also honors the $50 gift card I never got to use because it took Lammi several years to get it to me after I won it on a trivia night).
Since 2007, the content of this website (and its former life as Queen City Discovery) has been a huge labor of love.
If you’ve enjoyed stories like The Ghost Ship, abandoned amusement parks, the Cincinnati Subway, Fading Ads, or others over the years—might you consider showing some support for future projects?
