Kocsis Irma: A tour of our Locals. (A very quick one) - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)

Jó Pipa Söröző Good Pipe Ale-Hoüse

IX. Csarnok tér 6

It is at the end of Pipa utca, on the corner. A genuine pub, yet it has an atmosphere of intimacy. These two pubs are somehow off the beat of pub crawlers, though they are “market-hall” places, so there are plenty of customers. Inside the market-hall there used to be an eating-house on one of the iron bridges. This was the Csarnok Büfé (Market-hall Snack-bar) serving cheap vegetable dishes, stews, and a drink known as a small shot of raspberry juice, in which red wine figured prominently, if not quite legally. The sunlight would strike the iron bridge, and down below, in the oriental confusion of passageways and alleys snaking between stalls and booths and forming labyrinths, the porters’ voices, joined in conversation, droned, and marketwomen called over to each other in shrill voices in the yellow light of lightbulb- chains hung up among garlands of red peppers.

Matróz Csárda Sailor's Tavern

(IX. Alsó rakpart - at the foot of Szabadság bridge)

A socialist-realist documentary, a dream. Trucks rush and rumble past the quayside pub, a neon Popeye winks, the terraces are open in rain and storm, an old gentleman kneads his electronic instrument, the upper class public dances.

For a while the place ran wild, a truck parking lot was nearby and they pitched into selling platinum blondes and frog’s legs, hammer and tongs. That was when the Szabadsághíd Presszó was rechristened SEHEREZADE overnight (though it kept its old name, so that the sign said SZABADSAGHÍD SEHEREZÁDÉ), and offers women of pleasure in baggy Turkish pants. Then the parking lot was moved elsewhere and the MATRÓZ CSARDA is now-non-stop-its old self once again.

(They are planning to pull it down.)

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