The very same!
I never entered the bar not even as an adult.
Funnily enough I was thinking about that cafe in the past few days, it was a treat for me too for some reason, and on shopping trips to town, my mother always used to take me in there on the way to catch the bus.
We always sat in the booth by the counter, I was a big pastie fan back then, ( the Belfast kind ), they always served heavily buttered white bread with the food and frothy coffee made with milk, I usually had that or 7up, good grief how do I remember that stuff. ! I had a fascination for that neon sign, it always seemed somehow exotic to me, very American perhaps.
Then it was off to the bus and Smithfield Market via Gresham Street to view the pups in the window of the pet shop and the model of the ocean liner in the window of the shipping office, and it had to be through Smithfield and not around it.
I adored that place, and I especially always loved all the old safes there, every safe in Ireland eventually seemed to end up there, all sizes from small ones to huge ones, all very old and often with ornate brasswork, and loads of fantastic old paintings. The bric a brac in there would be worth a fortune today, I always suspected even then that there were many rarities to be found there.
Most of all, those places and events always remind me of my mother.
