.jpg)
Earlier this
week I heard the Northlake Tavern (NT) is closing. Today, it hit home when I
saw a post on Facebook. I went online and looked for the NT web site. And, yes,
it’s true, January 31st will be the last day this wonderful place
will exist as it now does. I have so many great memories of eating pizza and
drinking wine/beer with so many different people.
I was
introduced to the Northlake Tavern in 1969 when I went to work at the Regional
Primate Research Center at the University of Washington. Those were the days
when staff went out to lunch on Friday. It was also the time when we drank at
lunch. It was thanks to these women I learned to drink martinis, but I digress.
We didn’t always go to the NT for lunch, but we did often enough to slake our
desire for pizza.
In turn, I introduced
John to the NT. We’d go after work or on the weekend and order a LARGE COMBINATION.
Somehow, we’d manage to eat the entire thing and when I say LARGE COMBINATION,
that pizza had to weigh several pounds. When I left the Primate Center and we
moved to Lake Forest Park, we didn’t go as often and actually went years
without making a visit.
I remember the
next time we went there for dinner. We placed our usual order and looked at
each other in disbelief when we had to ask for a box for more than half that
LARGE COMBINATION. This was followed by my occasionally picking up a small
combination after work and bringing it home. Even then, the small was more than
the two of us could put away at one sitting.
Then there was
the time my Professor came back to town and wanted to take me to lunch. We went
to the NT and he ordered an onion pizza. I couldn’t believe an onion pizza
would be very good, but amazingly, it was excellent. I’d ordered something
different, but he sent his leftover pizza home with me which is how I discovered
it was quite tasty.
This morning I
wrote down the phone number and plan to call at exactly 11:00 am when the
Northlake opens and order a small combination for pick-up. According to the
Facebook poster, she had to wait three hours to get her two medium pizzas. It
took two hours to order and an hour for them to be ready for pickup. I’m hoping
I don’t have to wait that long, that I can get right through, order, zip down
there and have yummy pizza for dinner…and lunch and dinner and maybe lunch
again if the small combination is as large as it was in the past. If it is as
good as it’s always been, I plan to enjoy every single taste and bite while I
think about the people and times now in the past.
So, another one
bites the dust, becoming a strand woven to completion in my life tapestry
over years and decades. The Northlake Tavern will join Wilson’s Drive-In on
Aurora, the Twin Teepees, Lamont’s in Lake Forest Park, Goofy’s on Ballinger,
the Aurora and Sno-King Drive-ins…well, at my age, I could continue elaborating
but I’m sure you get the idea. I’m grateful for those past experiences and
memories and understand why these places have ceased to exist, but having those
particular tapestry strands tied off, so to speak, does make me sad.