Delux Cafe
Isn’t it so nice to have a place? I don’t quite mean being a regular somewhere, though that, too, has its (often kinda parasocial) charms. It’s more like a reliable fave, what’s always the answer to the question “Where do you wanna go?”
It’s one of the things I think I missed most at the very beginning of the pandemic when there were no places, and the very idea of places seemed so precarious. Some of my places did not come back—rest in peace, Great Scott, among others. I mourned them and their people—I still do, since so many are still empty, landlords sitting on nothing, waiting to rake in inflated chain-store rent. (Imagine if the city had a vacancy tax—now that’s an idea!)
When I saw Delux was reopening, I tweeted, “thank god, honestly spread my ashes outside delux when I die,” which is a feeling I still stand by. Delux is—absolutely zero hyperbole here—the best place on the planet.
I wrote about Delux once before, during an interview at a now-shuttered Boston offshoot of a big food media company, for a job I (now, luckily, in hindsight) didn’t get. I couldn’t find the story now, though I remember writing about the food, and how the TV behind the bar is always playing cartoons or old episodes of Charlie’s Angels. I wrote in what wasn’t quite my voice, trying to mimic the ~editorial style~ of the place—I’m pretty sure I used the word funky, like, lmao.
It’s funny because I was trying to sell a number of things—myself as a “food writer” for this publication and also Delux as a place for people who would read a recommendation on this particular website. This was all before the pandemic opened up the cracks across the restaurant industry; when people started asking what a restaurant and restaurant work should be, and before I had started thinking about that, too.
Other people are doing that work better than I’m capable of here (I’m thinking of Jonathan Nunn and anyone on ). Though, one time at Delux, during the summer, I overheard the bartender complaining that people kept ordering dirty Shirleys, a drink that was not on the menu but was everywhere on TikTok and in places, like the publication I had tried to work for, as a major trend. It was a reminder that, still, for many people, a restaurant is a one-sided, transactional space. They expect to be served rather than receive a service for which they might feel grateful. I was glad, then, that I hadn’t gotten that job way back when. I imagine I’d have been asked to write about where to get a dirty Shirley.
So, what do I want to tell you about Delux now? It’s just the best. It always has been. I was there last week with friends. Everything—arrabbiata, a couple cocktails, the company—was great. When it was over, I went out into the cold—a bit of a buzz going and feeling lucky for it—and headed towards home, same as I’ve done a million times before.