Jack Kerouac. My favorite writer of the beat generation of the fifties. I have no idea how many times I’ve read his book On the Road. Definitely every time I went on a trip to the US. And I always wondered if I was more Sal or Dean.
And so in the summer of 2001 I was back in San Francisco. I stayed at the downtown HI, not far from the famous St Francis Hotel. One evening I noticed a small poster in the reception, on which it was written, among other things, that Jack Kerouac was in this and that restaurant. And I said to myself, if it was him, then I have to go there too.
In the hostel, friendly volunteers held social events for the guests. So one night we went for beer tasting at bars around San Francisco. After midnight, when I had already drunk quite a few beers, I slowly walked back to the hostel. In the middle of Chinatown, it strikes me that Kerouac’s restaurant is somewhere around here. So I have to go.
And I find it. At 813 Washington Street. Sam Wo, kind of a weird little dirty hole. On the ground floor there was a bar, some chairs and stairs to the upper floor. So I’m going upstairs. A few tables, no tablecloths, two or three guests. And the gloomy light. Or maybe the beers just made me think so.
I sit down at an empty table. The waitress perks up and asks what I want. Since it’s so late, all I want is wonton soup. Fine. She goes to the hole in the wall, shouts something and leaves. After a while she comes back, yelling into that hole in the wall again. And a small kitchen lift, a dumbwaiter, comes up, all creaky and my soup on it.
The Chinese at the near table watch me suspiciously, I act disinterested, emboldened by that dose of beer, I slowly sip my soup and thinking, this is it, me and Jack Kerouac.
Years later, I read that in April 2012, the San Francisco Health Department ordered the restaurant closed for rodent activity (rat feces in the kitchen) and other food safety and fire code violations.
Super napisano