`Hmmm . . . do you take plastic?” I ask the wait person, a young, willowy thing with pink streaks in her hair. A huge strand of it bobs in her face.
“Plastic . . .?” she asks, her face blank.
“Yeah,” I say, “you know, Visa, Mastercard.”
She stares off in the direction of the cash register for an instant. “Plastic . . .” she repeats as if it were a mantra of some sort. “No, I don’t think . . . no, no, we don’t take plastic,” she finally concludes, like it was such a silly question.
We’re at the No Exit Cafe in Rogers Park, a neighborhood establishment with deep roots that go back to 1958. (It actually began in Evanston and didn’t move to Rogers Park until 1967, the year of the summer of love, but close enough.) It’s a place in a time warp, not so much because of its laid-back boho decor, but because it fits neatly into the mellow-yellow-Donovan-and-love-beads mentality associated with the year of its Chicago reincarnation.
In other words, folks here sometimes can be awfully spacy.
Take the drummer with tonight’s band. It’s about 8:45 p.m. when we walk in and see him right away.
“Is there music tonight?” I ask.
He stares off toward the cash register.
“Yeah,” he says.
After a pause, I say, “Ah, when?”
“Tonight,” he says, still staring in the netherlands of the kitchen and register area.
“When tonight?”
“There was music until 7.”
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“Oh, OK,” I say, settling in at a table for coffee and chess, figuring it’ll be a quiet evening with a pal.
“And at 9,” the drummer says. “Till, like, whenever.”
We sit down, examine the menu and try to order. We attempt a half sandwich with a cup of the soup of the day.
“Ah, I don’t know what it is,” says the wait person, not moving.
“Could you please find out?”
“Oh yeah,” she says, like a light bulb just went on. It’s tomato barley. “And bread with your sandwich?” She rattles off a bunch of different breads.
“A croissant then,” I say.
“No croissant with the half sandwich,” she says.
“Okay, white.”
“Oh, no white tonight.”
“Rye.”
“No rye.”
“Well, look, off that list, what do you have?”
“Dark rye, maybe whole wheat. I don’t know.”
This goes on. They don’t serve sodas or flavored waters. The surprise is that the spaghetti dinner, priced at $4.75, is both delicious and plentiful. And the jazz band — one of the No Exit’s regular nightly entertainment features (other nights include comedy, poetry and open mikes) — is pretty good.
They play against a backdrop of dying plants in the window, an antique clock, original paintings by a local artist, a couple of plaques in Korean and loads of books, magazines and board games.
All around, the sparse crowd is involved in its own activities. One guy’s drawing. Two others are playing chess. A group of friends is arguing about movies. A young, frizzy-haired fellow cracks his neck. Somebody else is reading a book.
All along, the band is playing. Eventually, the wait person passes a hat for tips for the group. They collect about $7. The band packs up, hangs out, smokes.
“That’s whenever,” says the drummer, pretending to hobble away from his drum kit, the mock disability an inside joke that illicits a few weak laughs.
– – –
Leaving No Exit, we chance by DJ’s Ranch, at 6962 N. Glenwood, on the way to the car. It’s the classic hole in the wall. From the window outside, we see four bodies hunched over the bar, each alone with its thoughts and its liquor, a couple of Las Vegas-style video games, and a pool table.
We decide to shoot a couple of games of pool, just for fun. We’re speaking in Spanish, which seems to throw a pall over DJ’s, where the bartender frowns the minute he hears us.
The pool table requires $1 in quarters, which we don’t have, so we ask the bartender for change.
“Can’t give you change unless you order a beer,” he says. “This isn’t a gameroom. Does this say gameroom outside? No. It’s a bar. We sell liquor. You have to buy liquor or you’re loitering.”
“No,” I tell him, “we have to engage in some sort of commerce — whether it’s playing pool at $1 a game or buying a Coke — but you can’t force me to buy a beer.”
“This is a bar, lady,” he says. “Our business is alcoholic beverages. You don’t buy one, you don’t play pool.”
DJ’s has a tavern license from the mayor’s liquor commission. And according to Debra Moore, case manager for the department of revenue and liquor licenses, “There’s no law anywhere that says you have to buy a drink of any kind anywhere, in whatever kind of establishment.”
We’ll keep you posted.
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the facts
Every day, hours vary, No Exit Cafe, 6970 N. Glenwood Ave. Call 773-743-3355. No Exit is wheelchair accessible.