More Memories of the Cafe Rienzi

This comment about the Cafe Rienzi came to me on another message board by the way of Doug Schneider:

A bunch of my high school friends and I would take the Long Island Rail Road into New York, and head for the Paperbook Gallery. After buying our books, we would then go the the Cafe Rienzi. Here I would order a himbeersaft and hope that people would think I was a real beatnik, instead of a high school kid from the suburbs.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Doug! I was no where near New York and the Rienzi during my high school years, unfortunately. That was in the sixties. Makes me feel like I missed out. I just remember the stories my aunt told of the original founders starting it up and the hi-jinx and fights - arguing violently about how to cut the cake and what size to serve and throwing plates at each other across the kitchen. I think that last part was primarily my aunt and uncle's doing, lol!

My parents divorced when I was 13 or 12 and living in South America. But in my childhood, we used to be in and out of New York all the time visiting my grandparents and aunt. I loved to spend the night with Aunt Joan - she was so much fun. She'd take me to Charlie Chaplin movies in the Village and to coffee houses to get that real Italian lemon ice. I knew about real lemon ice and cappucino long before they found their way into the midwest mainstream - and it's still hard to find a really good one (of either) here in the midwest, altho occasionally I get lucky. Uncle Tom took me to his painting studio and let me paint.

Sometimes the family would eat out in the Village too - I remember this one place that had a garden area in back where you could eat outside - I think my Mom and Dad, and Aunt Joan and Uncle Tom, and I were all there for a Sunday meal. I was really little and I tried to catch the pidgeons ...

JuneBug