Bodor Ferenc: Coffee-Houses - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1992)
Mignon A neon woman with fluffed hair lifts a coffee-cup to her lips, attracting customers in the eddy and swirl of Madách tér. This is a real café. Its front is ugly, but the interior is full of character. Geometric flagstones, relatively comfortable chairs. In the back the elevated area ensures adequate proportions. In the corner, speakers and amplifiers for music late at night. Behind the extension a secret is concealed. A tiny enclosed courtyard with a few tables and a hardy sumach that can weather anything. The whole place is like a bistro in an oasis in the Sahara, with the feeling that a camel may pass behind the wall at any moment, or Jack Nicholson may drop in. Instead, office love affairs are conducted here with much wringing of hands. The aluminium plaque with TELEFO inscribed upon it, stuck on the telephone booth beside the entrance, is a special peacetime source of excitement — a dainty detail worthy of an essay, evoking the purloined letter-culture of bygone times. Prices, on the other hand, are unaccustomedly murderous. Nowadays, city planning would like to grind the line of shops of Madách tér underfoot because it is not metropolitan enough. Then they will open a World Bank-type of cocktail bar instead of the Mignon—the Mignon that evokes such mellow, luscious, pink impressions. By the time that happens, the bills will have been paid. 28 MADÁCH IMRE TÉR, VII. MIGNON 3 33
