what is the word

Last nite I missed it, I missed the old Sweetwater more than ever. Walking home from a friend's place I felt this sad little tugging feeling when I turned down North 6th. Zablozki's was packed, but it was packed with drunk strangers & it wasn't the same. Even when Sweetwater was filled with drunk strangers it was Sweetwater. I wanted to find someone who could tell me where it went, or where I should go. There was a large group of people standing in front of the new Sweetwater Bar & Grill, or whatever they're calling it now. It looked like they were from Long Island or Bay Ridge or somewhere I imagined people like them to live. They were classic drunk strangers, very clean-pressed & cologne-scented & shiny-faced, four men & one woman; they surrounded me on the sidewalk. They said they wanted me to join them.
But what are you doing, I demanded to know, what are you doing at the old Sweetwater?
"Having a drink," one of them answered, perplexed at the question. They explained that they were on bar number 9 of a 12-bar bar crawl.
It felt so final, that answer. Sweetwater thru the glass looked so clean, & there were so many candles. ("They've turned it into a funeral home," Matt half-jokes these days.) It was already gone, everybody was always saying, but they were wrong. Back then it wasn't gone, but now it is.