WEST FARGO -- The bar and grill is a uniquely American institution.

It's not that other places in the world don't have bars. Lots do, of course. And they have grills, too. But sticking the two terms together suggests something other than a drinking establishment that serves food -- something that's been around for as long as people have been eating and drinking.

It gets attached to an approach to menu making and bar keeping that follows a pretty basic code: keep it simple and keep it familiar. Fargo is home to many a bar and grill, but you'd have a hard time finding a place that will make, as a matter of course, a Ramos Gin Fizz and serve it alongside a bacon cheeseburger. It's not that it can't be done. It just doesn't seem to happen often. But a beer and burger or wings and a whiskey soda just sound right together.

Border Town Bar and Grill is the sort of place where that has been happening for a very long time, and it shows no signs of making the kinds of changes that would put it into another dining category. It was around when a bar and grill made its G&T with an unnamed bar pour and deep-fried mushrooms. And, because its menu is necessarily limited to the simple and familiar, it can't be judged by a yardstick calibrated to the unique and complex.

So the place to start at Border Town might be the poutine ($13.95) which, in spite of being international cuisine from north of the border, contains no ingredients that people from the Midwest would find out of place on a plate.

You can still find breaded mushrooms on the menu, but it stops short of anything that would fall outside the burger, hot dog, pizza and chicken items that set the parameters for a bar and grill blackboard.

You will have a hard time finding an avocado option for your burger for reasons that should be pretty clear by now, but the Morning After Burger ($12.95) adds a fried egg and bacon to a handmade patty as the only hint to it being associated in any way with something other than a basic burger.

Border Town is a comfortable community gathering place that left the West Fargo dive bar scene behind and kept the good-friends-around-the-table-armed-with-bingo-daubers atmosphere. It added a (whole) lot of television screens and enough activities to make most any visit an entertainment. But it's still a bar and grill. And that's a good thing.

Portion sizes are substantial at Border Town. You can avoid the salt and calories that come with the "grill" part of a bar and grill by ordering a wrap or salad, but you would do better if you could skip the bathroom scale the morning after your Morning After burger and appreciate what bar food is meant to be. The chicken wings ($15.95) are a meal in themselves. Buffalo is traditional and the wings are large and meaty, if a bit dry.

Overall, the food is average and satisfying enough. Service, for a bar and grill, is not average and much more warm and friendly. For a place occupied with a good many regulars, you will almost certainly feel welcome.

The atmosphere is bright and busy with a kind of casino-meets-Margaritaville vibe. It feels as though you've known the place for a long while. Maybe you have. But if not this place, you've very likely known a place like it at some time or another. It's an updated version of what might have been there when the regulars were still packing meat down the street.

Hours: 10 a.m. to midnight Monday to Thursday; 10 to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday