Photos by Loni Workman and John Ansotegui. We recently returned from the famous Sip N Dip Lounge in Great Falls, Montana. Even though we talked to a ton of people about this place and were aware that GQ Magazine rated it as the #1 Bar in the world, nothing could quite prepare us for what we experienced. We shot for two days in the lounge, starting at 6 am and ending in the early afternoon. The wonderful management at the O'Haire Motor Inn (where the lounge is located) let us film in the bar outside business hours. Tim Huffman, (who plays a cowboy bartender in the beginning of the film) rented us SCUBA gear and built a giant bubbler out of PVC pipe and a scuba tank. Using our underwater housing, Eric recorded some amazing footage of our mermaids.
The Sip N Dip is an authentic tiki bar will bamboo walls and ceiling, the house drink is a blue-colored fish bowl that contains something like 10 shots of booze. Most evenings Piano Pat comes out and plays classic hits from the likes of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond.
Here's the kicker. Behind the bar are two large windows that look underwater into the swimming pool. At 9pm the mermaids appear and the place gets packed, everyone drinking blue drinks, laughing and dancing to Piano Pat's tunes.
Several key scenes in the film happen at the Sip N Dip. Including the meeting of two the film's main characters: Sanders and Eden.
Check out the pics and youtube mermaid montage.
