Mudminnow

Mudminnow is a miniature cocktail lounge in the basement of a nondescript apartment building on Capitol Hill. Simon Brinks says he created it for Daphne, drawing on an idea the two had discussed as teenagers: opening a place of their own. Years later, he chooses the lounge for a meeting with Cameron Cassmore, making the bar a concrete remnant of that shared past as well as the setting for a consequential conversation.

Setting and Design

Cameron reaches the lounge by following a threadbare gray carpet down a hallway. The space itself is strikingly small: a short bar, five stools, and brass ceiling tiles that reflect warm light in a yellowish glow. In the dark corridor outside, candles sit against mirrors on both sides, multiplying their small flames into an apparent infinity. They are fake candles, a practical detail that makes the extravagant display possible in a basement.

A paper menu, propped in a holder on the bar, is headed “Mudminnow’s Bespoke Libations.” Its drinks have fanciful names and prices that make Cameron think a six-pack from a grocery store would cost far less. The contrast between the elaborate menu and the room’s five stools gives the place an idiosyncratic, deliberately intimate character.

A Teenage Idea Made Real

Simon explains that Mudminnow was originally for Daphne. He and Daphne had talked about opening a place like it when they were young, in the 1980s, before speakeasies became a familiar cultural fashion. Simon recalls that they spent hours discussing the idea, though he finds it surprising in retrospect that two teenagers had imagined it so fully. The lounge thus preserves not only an old plan but a particular version of their relationship, before the problems that later changed Daphne’s life.

The Meeting with Cameron

Cameron encounters the lounge while looking for Simon. He arrives before it opens, passes through the candle-lined hallway, and sits at the bar while waiting. Natalie, a green-haired employee carrying highball glasses, tells him that the bar opens at eight; Cameron answers that he has a meeting with Mr. Brinks. Simon later appears behind the bar and tells Cameron that he knows who he is. He says he chose Mudminnow because he thought Cameron would appreciate seeing it, and points out that the place was made for Daphne. Cameron is left to reconsider the small basement bar as more than an unusual venue: it is a surviving piece of his mother’s history, arranged to give their meeting a personal setting.