Bečkerek
(Place, tavern, firm, Yugoslavia)
The nearest tavern we have, just 300m from home. However, this is actually two of them, same name same place in different times. The name is taken after the old name of the city.
The first one was owned by one guy who kept it as a classic, somewhat rustic-styled tavern with good food and cozy ambience. He often had important guests singing or playing there - Zvonko Bogdan, or even Rade Šerbedžija, Pera Kralj for that matter. It was a place of some distinction.
Then, while we were away, the old man died, and the tavern was closed for a few years. It reopened around... dunno, 2011? Two younger guys bought it off, remodeled it (a few times) and turned it into something else. While the old place looked just like a regular house from the outside and like a cozy old-style tavern on the inside, this one had some token old-style decoration on the outside, silhouettes of pannonian styled gables etc - everything else on it was so 20-teens, all gray, metal, glass, etched glass, metal, marble, more metal... The cook was, depending on the occasion, sometimes very good, sometimes a real majstor. The waiters were very professional, hospitality high, everything by the book, could have worked in the hotel or kaštel anytime, you could almost imagine them with white gloves.
But, alas, that doesn't help. The place doesn't have a soul, it's an empty box, there's too much echo, you can't properly talk in there. And it's not quite a proper tavern, there are no regular guests. There's a bus stop in front of it, Fabrika station is right across (with very few trains nowadays, and that's mostly cargo), but that's not enough to create any traffic for it. It's closed most of the time, you pretty much can't just walk in. You call and reserve. It's a tavern for birthdays, weddings, daća, or whichever kind of party the nuveau riche want to throw. That such clientelle nowadays often means the Rroma, well, that's a sign of the times, they now often have that kind of money.
Since 2025 they built an additional banquet hall on the adjacent lawn by the customs, their parkings connect lots, and the unpaved part of our street passes between them. They strictly care to prevent the street from extending to its full length through them, so they put up theese barriers, barricades. Anyone asks me, I'd drive the bus over that.
Mentions: 17-V-1990., 19-IX-1994., 08-I-1999., 29-VII-2016., 17-XII-2016., 25-XI-2017., 22-III-2019., 04-I-2020., 24-XII-2020., 22-III-2023., 13-IV-2023., 12-XII-2024., 16-VIII-2025., 09-XI-2025., 20-I-2026., 29-III-2026., daća, Fabrika station, kaštel, majstor, in serbian
10-IV-2023 - 13-IV-2026