District Tavern in downtown Tucson closing on Saturday

Walk into The District Tavern around closing time Saturday night and you might just find owner Noel Chester dancing on the bar to Iggy Pop's 1977 blaster "Lust for Life."

“That’s what happens on a good night at The Tavern," Chester said Thursday.

But Saturday won't be just another good night at the downtown bar. It will be its last.

After 10 years at 260 E. Congress St., The District will have its final last call Saturday night. By Monday morning, Chester will hand over the keys to landlord Scott Stiteler and begin a new chapter that may or may not include reopening in another location.

"I feel like it is OK for me to get off the beaten track because my clientele wasn’t on the beaten track," she said of scouting a new location. "So I'm looking all over. I have an open mind; I'm thinking outside the box. And we’ll see where I land.”

Stiteler, in a text message on Thursday, said he has had "many interested parties" reach out to him about the space.

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"I am only interested in the space continuing as a dive bar with all of the unique character and experience that great dive bars capture," he said.

Chester has known since early last year that The District's days were numbered; Stiteler told her back then that he planned to significantly increase the rent, bringing it to the current $28 a square foot from the $14 she had been paying when she exercised a five-year option on her lease in 2010, she said.

Chester has spent the past couple weeks packing up a decade of memories. She's leaving Stiteler the bar, which a friend of her's built. She's donating the booths to Skrappy's Tucson Youth Collective.

On closing night Saturday, you-call-it shots — which includes any liquor at the bar — will be $3 apiece. And when the mood strikes and she's ready, Chester will jump on the bar and do that dance.

"The reason that we are here and the reason The District is here is that I have this very, very strong lust for life," she said. "And that is what’s going to happen. That will be my trade for tears.”

See the full story in Friday's Arizona Daily Star.