“Feels Strange That It's Gone”: Noeline Hofmann Pays Tribute to Beloved Restaurant with Nostalgic New Song, ‘Bob's’

Noeline Hofmann has taken to socials to offer a touching homage to a restaurant, ‘Bobby's Grill’, which served as a formative place for the ‘Purple Gas’ singer-songwriter.

Hofmann has compiled her variegated experiences of Bobby's Grill into a new unreleased song, titled ‘Bob's’, which finds the ‘One Hell of a Woman’ crooner serving up a vibrant, striking array of vignettes that all pivot evocatively around this restaurant.

Ever since she stormed onto the scene with her viral hit, ’Purple Gas’ - which was revamped into a duet with Zach Bryan for his 2024 The Great American Bar Scene album - the Alberta, Canada native has become renowned for her visceral, spine-tingling storytelling ability, and ‘Bob's’ is the perfect encapsulation of this.

In tandem with the newly uploaded song snippet, Noeline Hofmann has taken the time to explain what inspired her to pen this unreleased track, “Used to work as a bartender/waitress/cook you name it in my hometown at the generational haunt. The place sold a few months ago, rumour has it they’re turning it into a daycare”.

Hofmann shared her first impression of the restaurant, “Walked into Bobby’s Grill - Char’s Bar sometime around my high school grad and shortly before I turned 18. Bob had passed away that spring, and it was just Char holding the place down. Got into a little black fringe top, some low rise jeans I could never fit into now, and a rhinestone cattle showing belt from the thrift store with a resume in hand and strut up to her behind the bar to let her know I’d be staying out of college and staying in town to work after high school. Pretty well got the job on the spot”.

Noeline Hofmann went on, “A week or so after my birthday, I started slinging beer there after my various day jobs. When I first started, old boys would like to push the limits with me to see what I was made of and I’d often be left speechless so as to not cross a customer service line of what you can say to a person and not get fired”.

Hofmann toasted how Char helped her navigate those situations, “Char herself took me aside and gave me some advice I’ve never forgotten, “Noeline, sometimes you have to lose the rhinestone cowgirl and be a rhinestone bitch.” She reminds me of the song “Outlaw Women” by Hank Williams Jr. I never worked with Bobby, but sometimes the lights would go crazy in the kitchen or shit would fly off the wall or fall on the floor or break at the most in opportune time - and we’d always blame it on him. We’d shake a fist at his ghost and go “what the hell Bob, what do you want now?!” if customers would ask about the lights or something going haywire we’d say “Oh it’s just Bob. We’ve pissed him off again””.

Noeline Hofmann stressed how Bobby's Grill was a cornerstone of the local area, “The bar was a staple in town. A good old fashioned diner and watering hole, the kind that doesn’t change much over the decades. The only rules that applied were the ones decided by the waitress of the night and the baseball bat under the counter”.

Noeline Hofmann concluded on a distinctly bittersweet note, recalling how she'd always hoped that one day, when she'd forged her own path in life, she could proudly return to Bobby's Grill and show the restaurant to the people she'd met along the way.

Now, Hofmann is enjoying tremendous success as a country artist, but with Bobby's closing down, she unfortunately won't be able to bring her songwriting buddies back to the grill, “I always hoped once I skipped town and made my own way I could bring the friends I’d make back to Bob’s/Char’s if they ever came to visit my hometown. Feels strange that it’s gone. I’ll miss it. (Especially the loaded dollar fries)”.

Noeline Hofmann is currently honing her eagerly awaited debut full-length album, and it's safe to say expectations are sky-high following the deserved plaudits she earned for her 2024 Purple Gas EP. This latest teaser of ‘Bob's’ has ensured the sense of anticipation remains through the roof, and we'll be keeping our fingers crossed the song makes its way onto the forthcoming record's tracklist.

For the full lyrics so far to Noeline Hofmann's ’Bob's’, see below:

“Back at Bob's I used to drink on the job

Just a little nip to take the edge off

Lock the doors after 2 to keep out the cops

And the regulars drinkin’ if they wanted til dawn

-

When the bikers'd roll in I'd dance up on the bar

They'd say, ’Girl, you sure know how to tug on a heart -

Do you know what it is to look but never touch?’

I'd say, ‘Watch it, boys. Now how ‘bout a shot?’

-

Round of black Sambuca on them for Char

Oh, everybody knows that's her poison

And ‘a vodka water in a beer stein, hon

While you're at it, I'm gonna need another one’

-

Oh, do you know what it is to look but never touch?

I've spent a life longin’, lived one staring off

-

Lights flicker in the kitchen, pans fly off the wall

Char says, ‘Bob, what the hell do you want?’

He's just as much of a curmudgeon dead and gone

As he was in the flesh and blood

-

Bad taxidermy and a photo wall

Labelled, ‘Board of Directors and Other Pee-Ons’

Their tabs are closed, don't darken the door

But some things don't change, they haunt this place like before

-

Folks could smoke inside til we got new floors

But some things don't change, they haunt this place like before

Crib in the day, cards after 4 - where's the time go?

There's things you can't put a hand on

-

Do you know what it is to look but never touch?

I've spent a life dying, lived one grasping at straws”

For more on Noeline Hofmann, see below: