One of my most significant Asheville complaints is that it’s not trashy enough. Sometimes I want to ignore the hazy, Citra-forward IPAs, Appalachian folk ballads, and $15 smash burgers for cheap beer, bad music, and chicken fingers.
I felt an especially deep longing for trash the third week of July 2022. I’d just returned from my annual pilgrimage to the Jersey Shore, which traditionally includes more than several Twisted Teas, cover bands that could best be described as having newly divorced dad energy, and at least one dinner of Wawa hoagies eaten sitting in the Sea Ise City Wawa (which must be noted, is my very favorite Wawa) parking lot. It’s hard to go from that to, like, Baby Bull, ya know?
The holy trinity of trash (who, in my mind, are made up of Snooki, Tiffany “New York” Pollard, and some girl named Lauren you were best friends with for one night in 2012 at Drinkers in Philadelphia and then never saw again) must have felt my longing and granted me my wish. Because that third weekend of July 2022, I stumbled upon the Geneva Riverside Hotel and Tiki Bar in Chimney Rock, aka “The Mistake by The Lake.”
The Geneva Hotel looks like any other roadside motel that’s seen better days, only attracted our attention after an afternoon at the Chimney Rock Brewing due to a small sign advertising “Tiki Bar Karaoke.”
The Tiki Bar at the Geneva Hotel sits in a narrow, gazebo-like structure between the pool and the same river you can soak in at Chimney Rock Brewing. Patrons at the bar (and the motel) have the option of being in the pool…or the stream. Similar to Miley Cyrus, it’s the best of both worlds. The first day we went…both were packed. And the karaoke? Well. I will say the patrons take it seriously…but in a glorious way? It’s very country-forward (which I love, especially in the summer). I remember that first-day hearing covers of “Friends in Low Places,” “Summertime,” “Goodbye Earl,” and “Man, I Feel Like a Woman,” but the crowning performance was from a man, wearing a denim vest—over only his bare chest, natch—with a bedazzled skull and cross bones on the back whose looks could most accurately be described as “a walking cadaver.” He sang a cover of Queen’s “Somebody to Love” higher and purer and closer to God than anything Freddy Mercury could’ve dared dream. After he finished, he got onto his Harley and disappeared into the hazy summer day (well…after a couple of miles, since we followed him till he turned towards Hendersonville in Bat Cave). I was hooked.
I learned in the ensuing weeks that the hotel used to be much rowdier and used to hold an annual festival known colloquially as “The Mistake by the Lake” that used to draw many Ashevillians but is sadly no more. However, “Mistake by the Lake” stuck, and is what my friends and I now only refer to the Geneva Hotel as. I returned several times to watch the karaoke last summer, including one Sunday where we sprung for a motel room (for a whopping $85.00 a night–for very clean accommodations) so we could stay past karaoke time (which ends early at five…but starts early…at one).
If you, like me, have an affinity for fun trash, definitely check out the Mistake by the Lake. A group of friends and I have a weekend there booked for early August, and I’m super stoked for it. Just be warned that it is what you make it. I’ve only had pleasant encounters there, but there’s a high likelihood you and your group will be the only ones there who believe that Joe Biden secretly isn’t a pedophilic election-stealing king.
AshevilleExplorer 
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