I just had the perfect breakfast and that involved the perfect place and the perfect atmosphere. I am sitting in a little place in the sunlit habour of Halifax. The place has a little neon open sign in the window.
Inside, there are no tables. just 3/4 of a counter with a countertop with colourless spots scrubbed meticulously clean over the years. my cushy backside sit on a fake-leather, brightly coloured, mushroom-shaped barstool and swings 45 degrees from one side to the other while I wait on the old couple to provide me with the order the yellowed menu must have held for fifty years. the atmosphere is rough -- friendly, nevertheless. it is the wrong place for chattiness. A place where everyone knows your name (damn it, cut out the music in the background. wrong theme). The walls are covered with picture porcelain plates, the plastic Christmas tree, the paper placemats. They don't have a dishwasher. Everything seems back in time. Halifax during the depression. Fishermen having manly meals and a warm atmosphere. Masculinity reeks in the air. A highly gendered place, a highly gendered discourse. Rough and sturdy and working-class friendly (if you know how to behave yourself, how to fit in [and at the same time not]) and somehow strangely ... sexy. I like the way I am treated here. It is so much more humane. I don't need the fancy food. I want this atmosphere. Kept alone as long as I want to. The exchange of occasional grunts and little stories. That is what I call Sunday morning breakfast. As much as I support the place we usually end up going -- and I have been complaining about the lack of relaxation lately. This is what I want.
The knitted picture on the bathroom door says: South End Inn: Home Away From Home.