Jazz · Billiards · Mocktails · Kombucha
The brass lemon is lit.
Around the side of Ol’ Bea’s Diner, a few steps lead below the pavement. An old iron railing. A heavy door. A small brass lemon catching the light.
Downstairs, the bass finds you before the room does. Amber lamps glow against the brick. A glass settles on the polished bar. Beyond the archway, someone is lining up a shot.
Pull up a chair. Nobody needs your reason for being here.
At the bar
Proper glassware. Botanical mocktails. Good tea. Kombucha on tap. Every drink here is alcohol-free; the interesting part is what goes into the glass.
Open the drinks menu
The Brass Lemon
Lemon, rosemary, honey and sparkling water. Bright enough to find the door by.
Velvet After Midnight
Blackberry, hibiscus tea, lime and a little ginger. Served deep red in a coupe.
The Last Word Upstairs
Chilled black tea, cherry, vanilla and lemon. Bea has opinions about the name.
From the taps
House 0.0% kombucha, poured into a tall glass. Ask what’s on tonight.
A proper pot of tea
Black tea, peppermint, or lemon balm. Some evenings need nothing more complicated.
The room listens.
The stage is small enough to catch a musician’s smile. Piano, upright bass, a horn catching the lamplight. Booths along the wall leave room for quiet conversation between sets.
Poetry and author readings belong to the Dollybird Stage over at The Starling and Violet. Down here, the band is starting.
Through the archway: the billiard room
Two green-felt tables wait beneath their own hanging lamps. The jazz carries through the brick arch, with enough distance to give the bass solo some courtesy.
Come to play, watch, or lean on a cue while you finish a story. There is no hurry to be good at it.
Open the dumbwaiter hatch
Ding. A plate of pie arrives from Bea’s kitchen. The old mechanism complains, as it has every right to do.
There are stories about what travelled in this dumbwaiter during the speakeasy years. Bea declines to help with the investigation.
“It’s a dumbwaiter, honey. Not a witness.”
A folded request slip beside the bass
A bass guitar leans beside an upright bass. A brown leather fedora rests on the empty chair. Under its brim: two requests, My Favorite Things and MacArthur Park. Someone has added, “Keep the cake inside.”
On the other side, in a rather pleased-looking hand:
You know me by the low notes.
Four strings. A familiar heartbeat.
But I also carried a little brass voice.
Three valves. No strings.
Find the key of that trumpet,
and you may find what I kept.
A bass clef curls around the corner of the paper. It looks almost too helpful.
Try the bass clef
Right musician. Different instrument. Jack appears to be enjoying himself.
Look again at the three valves.
A small hint, pencilled in the margin
The trumpet in this riddle sounds a whole step below its written notes. Its written C sounds B-flat. That sounding note names the instrument’s key.
The requests brought you to the musician. His trumpet holds the answer.
Try C
That is what the trumpet player reads. Listen a whole step lower.
The room kept its secrets.
In Urban Lemonade’s story, this really was a Prohibition speakeasy. The old bar, the worn wood, the tucked-away entrance and the dumbwaiter survived the years when the room went dark.
When the lights came back on, the room kept its character and changed what it poured. A beautiful night out, with no alcohol and no explanation required.
A note from upstairs
At a respectable hour, Bea wipes the counter, turns up the stools, mops the linoleum and goes home. The inside staircase is locked. Food travels by dumbwaiter; people use the outside door.
“I know where you’ve been. There’s a perfectly good door outside.”
— Ol’ Bea
The Blind Lemon is a fictional gathering place in Urban Lemonade.
