Before I’d gotten a job near downtown Northampton, I’d been to Jake’s a handful of times. When they used to be open after midnight, I’d stumble in after a show or a beer binge, looking for sustenance that could carry me until I woke at noon.
When I was feeling lucky and not too hung over on a weekend morning, I might try to beat the college student rush and break my fast there.
My flirtation with the place turned into something more serious, though, when I started stopping in for lunch during my work day. Though it was nearly a decade ago, I still remember my first time.
“The name’s Christine,” my blond-haired, Bette Davis-eyed waitperson said as she appeared before me with coffee pot in hand. “Christine. Just like Stephen King’s psychotic, man-hating car.”
Since then, I’ve never forgotten her name, and she’s never forgotten my order. Ham and American cheese omelet, white toast, homies, and, if I’m feeling light on my daily intake of cholesterol, a side of sausage. Though Christine’s cup of attitude runneth over, from early on she made it clear that as far as what I ordered went, I was in a no-judgment zone.
Tucking in amidst lawyers from the courthouse across the street, politicians, disheveled college students and parents with their kids, I never felt any guilt eating my breakfast at lunchtime.
*
But after years of comfortable consistency, change came to Jake’s this spring. The business was sold. While the menu and waitstaff remained the same, the huge black and white Leonard Baskin prints of jazz artists and the classic advertisements disappeared. In their place are paintings of neon signs and frozen dinners. The new art is technically well rendered, but in a place that had prided itself on being “frill-free,” its vibrancy is disconcerting.
Christine seems to have weathered the change as best she can. Brave as ever, she’s evidently dismissed the visible changes as not quite frills, and she’s kept her upper lip as stiff as ever.
But then, a couple weeks ago, technicians came to Jake’s with computer screens. Touch screen monitors upon which staff can record their orders and… accept credit cards.
This frill, I was told at a recent luncheon, was why my friend’s Valley-famous turkey Reuben had arrived with white bread instead of wheat. Clearly, there is trouble in paradise. If you haven’t dined with Christine and her colleagues recently, now might be the time. Frills have arrived at Jake’s, and our non-judgmental friends need our support.
