After you’ve worked as a musician for a while, you can roll up to a place and feel the trouble. So it was for me on Saturday.

I pulled up to the restaurant/bar in the middle of a little shopping strip in the Maryland ‘burbs and parked right in front — never a good sign. From the outside, the place looked like your basic lunchtime office park deli, although it appeared to have higher aspirations once you looked at the menu. Inside, the staff outnumbered the customers. The lighting was harshly bright and the walls were painted light colors — a bad idea in a place where people are supposed to relax and musicians are expected to help them.

This gig involved me and three full-time players. Our job was to lay down some blues in a space that was about as festive as an interrogation room.

The stage was small but decent enough, with lots of storage off stage right. Between drum bags and amp covers and guitar cases and winter coats and gear duffels, even a simple four-piece band can haul along a lot of detritus. And the stage wasn’t in the front window — a huge plus because the stage-in-the-window setup is always a bright, reverberating sonic nightmare. In fact, tonally, the warmth of the stage was a big contrast to the icy cold emanating from the rest of the place.

It didn’t take long before I decided I was trapped in an episode of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.” The aggressive indifference of the staff was the kind of thing that had to be learned over time — otherwise, there was a chance they might accidentally serve someone. There was no mixer fountain or beer taps at the bar. The cook was literally working with a hot plate in the kitchen. I could see into the kitchen from the bar, and a big tub of shrimp (with no apparent refrigeration going on) sat there for at least an hour.

A few people stumbled in, including at least one person who appeared to be engaging in the sort of alternative commerce that goes on at certain bars. His business trip included at least one stop in the kitchen, which would explain the shrimp.

We set up. I play through an old-school tube amp, and those amps can be persnickety things. But on this night, in this nearly empty bar, I was getting absolutely perfect tone out of my rig. When that happens, you feel like you can grab the notes and shape them as though they were clay. And that’s just what I tried to do all night.

The audience, such as it was, did like the music. Most of them knew the bandleader and were on his mailing list. The bar might have brought in six customers of its own all night, but the applause from those who were there was genuine. Trust me: Musicians appreciate that.

We eventually got through the evening, taking only one break. My wife, who did what she does, knew the entire staff and was getting hugged by some of them by the time we left. I hauled my gear out to the car — why does a harmonica player carry 70 pounds of gear? I wondered for the umpteenth time — and we took off into the night.

I doubt that restaurant will be there by the time summer arrives. It had all the feel of a “Hey, kids, let’s open a restaurant!” place, and those places don’t survive. But you can’t always play in a hopping room. As a musician, you take what you can.