My favorite restaurant is closing. It was a greasy spoon where you could get a full dinner (including a big bowl of soup) for $4.95. In many ways besides the prices, it was a throw-back to the 1930’s-1940’s.
It had big booths with picture window outlooks onto a busy 3-street intersection in a Yuppie neighborhood. But the restaurant’s clientele ranged well beyond the Yuppie. There were seniors who reminiscing about the rides at Chicago’s Riverview Amusement Park. There were middle-aged people challenging each other to games of “Name That Star” – one of them throwing out the name of some classic movie for which the other then had to provide a roster of its lead players. “Was Kirk Douglas in that? I don’t think so!” I recently overheard a conversation between a young man and his parents. The young man was justifying his failure to settle on a career path. He told his disgruntled father that he wanted to “find himself” by taking a year off touring Europe before he seriously chose a college major. The father was overly stern against such slacking off – and the son was overly verbose about the advantages of such a “Wander Jahr” (a year of wandering as the Germans call it).
All this was woven through with the speculations of policemen and plumbing contractors who’d settle into adjoining booths for a while to “take a load off.”
There was almost always been an interesting conversation I could eavesdrop on at “The Golden Angel.” The low prices and informality of the place attracted this eclectic mix of customers who could relax into the unimportance of it all.
Of course, it really was sort of a greasy spoon. The soups were always good and homemade – with the minestrone being chock-full of vegetables. But then the entrees often showed the cut-rate nature of the place. The meatloaf was usually 90% filler, a fact disguised with heavy ladings of canned gravy. But I really didn’t mind. I don’t gravitate to the nouvelle cuisine with its wisps and curls and drizzles of exotic ingredients. And the fact that the meatloaf was mostly filler was actually a plus for me. I could feel I was adhering to something close to a vegetarian diet. No cows killed to make that meatloaf.
And when you ordered coffee, you truly got a bottomless cup – with the waitress attentively filling it every time your cup threatened to go below the half-way mark. So I usually came away from the place with a pleasant buzz of hopefulness about the world. I was filled with the echoes of all sorts of lively conversation, and I was percolating with plans about all sorts of things I could myself accomplish. All this was fueled by the thick, sometimes twice boiled, servings of caffeine that kept being poured my way.
It was the perfect place to retreat to when I’d come to the library across the way to work on my writing. I’d write a while in the library, then I’d “take a break” (which I needed about as much as that young man needed to tour Europe to find himself). But I’d indulge myself. I got to know the waitresses well enough that they would welcome me as a “regular,” but not so well that we would intrude on each other’s lives.
And now this is all going to be gone. I might be able to get in one more visit before I leave for Spain. But the place is closing on November 12, while I’ll be taking my own Wander-Wochen (weeks of wandering) in Europe. And with it will go that rag-time refuge for the homely and near homeless, for the aspiring and the expiring. With it will go the ideal place for grazing and gazing.
The site has been bought by Lou Malnati’s, a pizza chain. They are going to re-configure the place, expanding to make an out-door café in what is currently the parking lot. I checked online for the menus Malnati’s offers at other locations. No, this won’t be the old greasy spoon anymore. The new owners are going to be decidedly upscale. Their recipes feature arugula, and the main beverage they serve will be Dasani’s bottled water. No, this isn’t going to be the sort of place where you can relax over discussions of your triumphs dumpster diving.
I told the elderly Greek owner of The Golden Angel that I’d miss his restaurant. A tear welled up in one of his eyes, and he snuffled out his own regret, his own confession of how he’d miss doing what he had been doing for so many decades.
And so hail and farewell to the Golden Angel. All of us misfits and miscreants will miss you.
