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

Árnyas Sörkert “Shady” Beer-Garden

XIV. Telepes utca 90

A corner pub. There are people playing pitch in the dust by the legs of the green garden tables. Inside a solitary man is trying to recruit partners for a game of cards from among the little old ladies “Come on, Marika, let me win something off you, 1 don’t want your money, just give me a couple of coins. NOT ONE, because then you’ll always know how much 1 have on me. See, she gave me one Forint, one lousy old Forint. Come on, Marika, come and play, all 1 want is to win a bottle of beer. There, she’s made a run for it.”

Marika is outside with the pitch players, they are drinking Kőbányai beer, everyone is drinking Kőbányai beer. Marika is seventy, with a turban round her bun, a mar- ketwoman, now pensioned. The Árnyas seems a peaceful place.

Barna Vendéglő (Weiner, Sarokház)

Barna Restaurant (Weiner, Cornerhoüse)

XIV. Öv utca 172

This old-fashioned restaurant has been known under a variety of names. The best stews in town, home-made pickles, oilcloth on the galvanized iron tables on the terrace, old trees. The bartender says there used to be a door leading from the taproom into the owner’s flat. The owner’s widow is still in residence. 1 go round the back to look for her. Her husband hadn’t been able to bear having his restaurant taken away from him overnight. “It wasn’t even nationalized, you know, they just came in and took it away. They had the connecting door bricked up. My husband hanged himself the next day.” Her son, too, is dead. The restaurant is now named after its present owner. The Weiner-as I call it-is accessible from the direction of Bosnyák square. The bus turns by the old Zsolnay factory, there are still a couple of ceramic letters on the wall. You have to get off at Öv utca.

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