Don’t you love the idea of the old speakeasy? Prohibition of alcohol, yet folks took libation underground and partied anyway? Now, the hamburger on the other hand, is a creation that has always disturbed me. I remember as a child the putrid smell of cooking flesh wafting off the frying pan as Grandma made “hockey pucks” as we referred to them. An economical meat for economical times. To avoid the stench, I used to go play outside when hamburgers were cooked, and my cousin was happy to have mine as I opted for sliced tomato on toast.
I should have known better than to agree to go to the 5 8 Club with my veggie burger loving husband. I don’t much like veggie burgers in the first place as they taste too much like meat to me, and I hate dirty restaurants. This place takes the cake in the disgusting factor. I ordered a New Castle on tap that tasted like dumpster juice, you can still smell the cigarette smoke from three years ago, and since everything there is fried, stale grease permeates the place.
I guess some people are attracted to kitsch. They like to be in places that hold a sort of nostalgia. Perhaps people go to the 5 8 Club to imagine the era of speakeasies and prohibition or to imagine the fifties full of cruisers and hamburgers, but I can’t imagine how they think the food at the 5 8 Club today is at all palatable.
