In the wee hours of a recent Wednesday, an unlikely couple entered the Chit Chat Lounge. One tall white kid and what appeared to be a teeny-tiny but very-butch black lesbian spied a few regulars lazily throwing darts in a corner and a dressed-down man and woman at one end of Chit Chat's worn-but-gleaming bar, speaking and laughing softly in a non-specific Southern accent. It was an unpretentious crowd, not at all rambunctious and remarkably good-natured for 1 a.m. The bar, which had been standing for about 60 years, was filled with pictures of a pretty blond lady named Sherry, the proprietor for the last 16 years; that's just about how long George, the gent tending bar at that weird hour, had been working there. There were no musicians on Chit Chat's little stage, so George was slowly feeding dollars into the digital jukebox in between pours. The teeny-tiny but very-butch black lesbian let out a whoop of delight as she recognized Teddy Pendergrass' welterweight soul croon, exclaiming, "That's my favorite goddamned song!" Smiling, George proceeded to program a solid half-hour of Pendergrass into the machine, while somehow keeping everybody's glass full and carrying on conversations with all patrons simultaneously across the great expanse of Chit Chat's wide, dark-wood floor. He never even raised his voice. The easy congeniality of the evening was not a fluke. This is a place where quiet nights cuddle side-by-side with big events — NASCAR, blues, open jams on Wednesday with the Joe Friday band, karaoke Thursdays.