From the outside, the building at 2200 North Fremont in Monterey doesn’t look like much. There’s an old blue-and-white sign informing motorists that this is Eddie’s. Behind the sign and a large parking lot is a large brown building with no windows. It makes one wonder if this building houses a card room or a strip joint.

But for visitors who wander inside, Eddie’s is truly a surprise. The cavernous bar radiates the cozy feel of a mountain lodge. In addition to being downright comfortable, the bar has beautiful brick walls, two fireplaces, a movie screen, a small stage, four pool tables, a popcorn machine, a cotton candy machine and a couple jukeboxes that play 45s ranging from Patsy Cline to Prince.

Though any of these diversions could make for a memorable evening, possibly the best thing about the bar is Eddie himself. When I stop by Eddie’s on a recent afternoon, Ivory “Eddie” Edwards welcomes me right at the entrance to his bar.

“My name is Eddie,” he says. “Welcome to my house. That’s my greeting.”

Before we sit down at the building’s main bar, we pass a display case with various Edwards’ memorabilia—from a handful of Certificates of Appreciation to a classic shot of Edwards DJing in the ‘70s while wearing a snazzy white suit and hat. Seated at the bar, Edwards tells me how the son of an Alabama ore miner ended up owning a bar in Monterey, California.

After joining the Army at 17—only possible because Edwards didn’t have a birth certificate and his mom told Army officials he was 18—Edwards was stationed in Germany following four years at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Eventually, after returning stateside in 1966, Edwards was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey to learn French. He says he really enjoyed his six-month stay in the region.

“Oh man, I loved it,” he says. “I wish I could go back to those days. Monterey was a small town. Everything was old and rustic.”

But after DLI, Edwards was sent to Vietnam. Edwards traveled all over Vietnam for seven years as an interrogator and an intelligence advisor. During his stint, he became highly decorated, with three Bronze Stars and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. Edwards says that on March 20, 1973, he left the war-torn country.

After a couple years at Fort Bragg, Edwards returned to Monterey to study Japanese at DLI. Following a year here, Edwards could speak German, French, Japanese and Vietnamese.

“I’m a parrot,” he jokes.

For three years after his last stint at DLI, Edwards ran a military intelligence company at Fort Ord until he retired from the service in 1978. At the time, he had no idea what was in his future.

“I was kinda scared, because I had been in the military all my life,” he says.

But before too long, Edwards was working as the night manager at the Presidio NCO Club, an establishment for DLI students. While working there, he started to DJ some nights, leading to the development of his alter ego, DJ Fast Eddie. When the word got out into the civilian community, Edwards says his skills behind the turntable were in high demand.

Edwards says around that time he signed a 10-year contract to be the house DJ for the Brickhouse, the brown building that Eddie now owns. In 1991, he bought the Brickhouse and reopened the establishment as Virgo’s, a country and western bar. Before country artists like Billy Ray Cyrus caused country to explode in popularity, Virgo’s was a favorite for local cowboys. Edwards says the bar had its own line dancing team and a nationwide dance called the Virgo Strut originated in the large establishment.

When Fort Ord shut down in 1994, Edwards says Virgo’s lost a lot of its clientele. A few years later, Edwards abandoned the country and western theme and renamed his bar Eddie’s.

Now, Edwards works at his bar every day of the week. He does everything from getting behind the turntables as DJ Fast Eddie to bartending to cooking southern-style dinners like ribs and catfish for his customers.

For the 68 year-old Edwards, working at Eddie’s keeps him in mental and physical shape.

“A lot of guys my age they quit and do nothing,” he says. “They don’t last for long. I gotta go to work.”