This is a booth at the Alumni Cafe
Picture yourself in it!
If you told me you’d never been to the Alumni Café in Quincy MA, I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s a pub with no windows. None. You have to open the enormous wooden door to see what it’s all about. The minute the door opens, every knuckle cracking customer at the bar turns to see “who the fuck is it now?”. The only people who don’t move are the ones who left their hearing aids at home.
The place is split into two rooms, the dive bar and the pizza place. The pizza place gets their own KENO screen so you don’t have to leave your booth to check the winning numbers. Yeah I said booth. This place only has booths. All three walls are lined with booths. Yes the place has four walls but the fourth wall is cluttered with a Pac-Man game console that seats two people and some other random items that weren’t as important.
I’m a big booth fan. It seems like every 60’s and 70’s restaurant designer were pro booth. Now a days if you find a place with booths they are outnumbered by regular old tables. You gotta wait for them. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve said “we’ll wait for a booth” A booth is a table upgrade. How can you not want a booth? I always want to go around and say “hey if we all said we’d wait for a booth, eventually they would get rid of the tables and get more booths, you know what I’m saying?” but I can’t talk to people who are eating when I haven’t eaten yet.
Turns out I can own my very own booth http://www.retroplanet.com/PROD/18728
But then I have to get someone to come over and serve me.
There is one table in the place but that’s where the waitresses sit and watch what’s happening. I have a funny feeling they sit there and smoke when Sully says it’s ok.
My mother and I ordered a pizza with linguica and onions, the waitress Lena said “good choice”. Linguica makes everything better. You can say “Jimbo choked on a piece of linguica” and guaranteed someone will say “Ohh, I love linguica”.
The wine comes in the 187 ml bottles, the little ones you get on a plane. We played some KENO while we waited. The pizza was the 12 inch pub style pizzas that I love. Crispy crust, certain areas of the cheese crunched too, I think the linguica added some extra oil to it. My mother saw someone she knows picking up pizza to go which seemed to be a substantial part of their business.
Now this is how I know I liked a place. I’m done with my meal. Full. Waiting for the bill and suddenly I think “I should get something to go”. Not based on need or hunger or even generosity to share with others, based exclusively on voracity. I ordered a plain cheese to go. My mother said “Kendraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” and just looked at me. I looked away. The order had been placed.
Needless to say that cheese pizza never made it past midnight.
Odds I’ll be back: it’s a shoo in
Possibility of witnessing a bar brawl: in your favor
PROS:
Legalized gambling
Dimly lit drinking spot
Linguica
Locals Locals Locals
Alumni Café’
708 Hancock St
Quincy, MA 02170
(617) 472-0555
Thanks for listening!
Kisses-
Kendra
Kendra is a stand up comic living in Brooklyn where she owns a super comfortable bed. She spends most of her time wondering where the hell her sugar daddy is and hoping he didn’t settle.
www.kendracunningham.com
Comments