Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/507207
8 May 6-12, 2015 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Another piece of America is gone. Unless you have a connection with Chapel Hill you might as well stop reading now. Thomas Wolfe said it right. "You can't go home again." On a recent miserable rainy day, Wolfe's law swatted me right between the eyes while meandering through Amber Alley. Amber Alley is a sub- terranean walkway that used to be the gateway to Chapel Hill's most iconic res- taurant, the Rathskeller, better known as the Rat. I looked through a new window into the Rat and felt sick. The Rat has been com- pletely gutted, leaving only steel beams and wide-open space with clean white walls. The Rat had never been clean. It was always a funky dark place. Now it has had a lobotomy. All of its personality has been surgically removed leaving only a white industrial shell ready for some soulless commercial enterprise. The destruction of ancient landmarks in Iraq by ISIS is no more complete than the destruction of the Rat by economic forces of Franklin Street renovation. As John Lennon once wrote, "There are places I remember all my life/though some have changed/some for- ever, not for better." The Rat was UNC's finest emporium of greasy steaks, serving many a freshman's first college meal. The Rat was a fountain of alumni nostalgia. The Greek word nostalgia means "pain from an old wound." That is an apt description of the final loss of the Rat. The Rat was opened in 1948 by the Danziger family. It closed down officially in 2007. Even after it closed, there was always the faint hope it might one day reopen. Ain't gonna happen. The Rat was a dark underground world of wooden booths carved with names, dates and initials. It probably violated numerous fire codes. Its walls had murals, which gave their names to theme dining rooms. There was the Lautrec room featuring a French cabaret scene, the Circus Room with dancing animals and the Cave Room featuring fake rocks. The bar, called the Rat Trap, was on the right when you entered the low-slung hobbit-like door. Pictures of sports teams, UNC memorabilia and fraternity dudes decorated the walls. The greatest location was the large table in the Train Room under Franklin Street's sidewalk. You could look up and through the stained glass blocks in the ceiling see the shad- ows of people walking overhead. The waiters never changed. They must have come with the place as young men and remained through their old age. They were dignified older black gentlemen who knew their business and performed in a highly professional manner. The printed menu was one of the greatest aspects of the joint. It had a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt who had dined there. The ultimate meal at the Rat was the Double Gambler steak. The menu described the Double Gambler as "a chewy elongated highly inedible half pound of rustled steer. Slipped under the table to any bandit with a miserly amount of salad, a few mashed up fries, and burnt bread. Sorry no credit allowed on our top seller. Only $6.50." Other culinary delights included lasagna described as "generations of students and alumni have put this dish on the All-America team. A tasty Italian casserole made with meat sauce and four different cheeses, plus a salad and choice of dress- ings -$4.50." Beef stroganoff "an Old World favorite done up in our own famous style" only cost $4.50. Yum. Yum. Like Proust with his memory cookie, seeing the bare bones of the Rat brought back a flood of memories of Franklin Street's commercial ghosts: The Shack, a disreputable bar on Rosemary Street (Come in before it falls in). Hector's (Famous since 1969); Clarence's Bar, (Last call for alcohol, don't claim you didn't hear me); Jeff's Soda Shop; the Town Hall; the New E bar where you could sit at a second floor table window seat and watch the Franklin Street parade while drinking 25 cent Rolling Rock beers; the Carolina Grill, home of the world's best cheese steaks; the Porthole restaurant with its famous Porthole rolls; and the Scoreboard, beer and Carolina athletics. Kemp's was the first head shop in Chapel Hill, filled with weird hippie appliances and clothing items. It was operated by a tall guy named Larry who some people claimed was a narc. All of these places along with youth are now gone with the wind. To close with another quote from Thomas Wolfe, "O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost come back again." And this time bring some Nexium. The Leading Edge In Contemporary Living MOVE IN TODAY! AddisonRidge.com • 910.227.3775 PITT DICKEY, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910.484.6200. Franklin Street Blues by PITT DICKEY