March 19, 2014 · Team HG
In the mid-1970s, I lived on Radijsstraat, a working-class street near the Noorderplantsoen. My girlfriend was studying in Baarn. She had a telephone there. A luxury! A statement that seems undeniably strange now. But the need to hear each other, even for a moment, was certainly no less then than it is now. We arranged by mail when I would call her. I remember her phone number perfectly: 02154-8125, a rhythmic, almost melodic sequence of numbers, a coded desire.
If you called from a PTT phone booth back then, the duration of the call depended on the number of quarters you dropped into the phone. It caused haste, discomfort, and anxiety. That is why I always called her using the Bakelite telephone from the small, brown café De Jong, which hung on the left in the narrow passageway from the café to the liquor store. A simple counter did its job. Sweet moments were billed by the call duration.
Cafés aren't telephone booths. So, after our phone conversation, I had a glass of beer there and let my thoughts wander for a moment to where they were. While doing so, I kept marveling at the café's minimal dimensions: about 5 m x 5 m. Only Café De Groot (what’s in a name?) on the Rodeweg was considerably smaller.
The regulars were Groningen natives, mostly men of a somewhat older age, who defined the convivial, intimate atmosphere in their own inimitable Grönnigs. You wouldn't find anyone else there, except for the occasional telephone operator.
Connoisseurs of Groningen pubs were often unaware of De Jong's existence. Perhaps that is just as well! Some things you prefer to keep to yourself, like this little gem at the end of Nieuwe Boteringestraat. Small as it was, it had two front doors placed right next to each other. An absurd architectural feature. Above them, a colorful stained-glass window, depicting the historical name M. de Jong Permit.
A bar with a gleaming glass cabinet and a polished mirror stood across the width of the café. Four bar stools provided seating. Then there was the regulars' table, surrounded by twelve chairs. Thirteen—that would never work! And with the single small table by the window with two chairs, the café was more than full. Despite the lace curtains, this little table was always in the sunlight. There were always two beer mats on it: one for one and one for the other. If you removed them, it was as if they were still there: the sun had darkened the tabletop over the years, except beneath the two beer mats: light, round contours.
De Jong was old (1885). The wooden floor and paneling bore witness to this. The thick flagstones that made up a square meter of the entrance intrigued me. Why, and why there? It never became clear to me.
Just around the corner, on the Noorderbinnensingel, stood a wooden door in a blind wall. It was the entrance to the small courtyard, specifically to De Jong's small but fully stocked liquor store. People from all over knew how to find it until the early hours of the morning.
The café was expanded with a billiards room in the mid-1980s. This more than doubled the surface area of De Jong. With a few tables around it, the café looked quite a bit larger. Yet the original café always remained the small heart of the establishment.
De Jong was a club pub: people played cards and competitive billiards there, and it served as the home base for three different angling clubs. The sturdy trophy cabinet bore witness to many triumphs. Two wall-mounted display cases containing a prepared pike and a zander left nothing to be desired in terms of love of fish. Beneath the latter hung a plain yet monumental board, upon which a small metal plaque was added every year starting in 1952, bearing the name of E. de Jong’s traditional annual fishing day engraved. The one in 2013 turned out to be the last.
What will become of the fishermen, the billiards players, the card players, and the regulars' table is uncertain, but on Sunday, March 2, café-liquor store De Jong closed all its doors for good.
In Full Glory.
Author: Coen van Uhm
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