The Hurdy Gurdy Saloon, which Doty opened in December 1972, offered live music all week and City Mouse often played there. That is, until the disco era kicked in with the release of “Saturday Night Fever” in the late 1970s. It was about that time that City Mouse started booking out of the Twin Cities and took the road.

“There were places to play,” Steiner said. “You just had to go out (and find them).”

It was also about that time Doty reevaluated his business and decided it was time for a change. He reopened the bar in the early 1980s as R.J. Noodles Co., a disco and pasta bar that offered a dance floor and a d.j.

Doty remodeled again and changed the name in 1984 to T.J. Finnegan’s Pub — the name of a business he owned at another location — and the live music didn’t return. (Incidentally, Doty got the “Finnegan” part of the name from his former dentist simply because he thought it was a cool-sounding name for a bar. The “T” and the “J” were just a couple of initials that sounded good with Finnegan.)

“Disco came and went so fast, and so did (R.J. Noodles Co.),” he said.

Instead of bands, he had a long-standing weekly comedy series that was popular for 20 years before it ended last year. Other bars he owned in the Mankato area did offer live music.

As for City Mouse, the band established its current lineup in 1986, and that’s about when they quit traveling full time. They developed a devoted following in the area and played as often as possible. The same is true now.

Also in ’86, Arsenault — who had been teaching up north and playing in a group called the Lost Walleye Orchestra — returned to the Mankato area and rejoined City Mouse. Arsenault, Haefner, Dave Pengra and Steiner formed an offshoot of City Mouse under the Lost Walleye Orchestra name. All four members continue to play shows under that name.

Whether performing as City Mouse or Lost Walleye Orchestra, the band’s loose motto has remained as the years passed: “You don’t quit playing because you get old; you get old because you quit playing.”

Steiner was inducted in the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in 2002, and City Mouse will be inducted in April in the Minnesota Rock/Country Hall of Fame. Doty also was honored in 2005 by being inducted in the Minnesota Hospitality Hall of Fame.

Coming full circle

From the pictures hanging on the wall of the brightly colored seats and the striped wallpaper of the Hurdy Gurdy Saloon taken the day before the place opened in ’72, it’s clear how much T.J.’s has evolved.

From the black-and-white pictures Steiner keeps of the early days of City Mouse, members of which wear bell-bottoms and shaggy beards, it’s also clear how much the band has changed.

Yet, sitting across from each other where the stage of the Hurdy Gurdy used to be, Steiner and Doty talk about gigs and events like weeks have passed instead of years. The memories of the many faces of the bar and the band are so fresh they almost seem to step into them as they describe how much they each have seen,

how far they’ve come.