EDITOR'S LETTER

editor's LETTER There was nothing fancy

About the restaurants I'd go to when I was a boy. There were no cheese tuiles on the menu. And no saffron risotto or langoustine ravioli. A few of those places might have served chateaubriand or oysters Rockefeller, but the closest any of them ever got to a Michelin star was the set of snow tires on the Plymouth Belvedere parked out back. None of that mattered, though. To a kid from a small town in Southern Wisconsin, the words “supper club” suggested something special. And exotic. Even if I had no idea what they meant.

Fifty years later, it still wasn't clear, so I asked my friend Ann. She's the dining critic for Milwaukee magazine. “Every supper club is a restaurant,” she says, “but not every restaurant is a supper club. In part, it comes down to the menu, which includes a relish tray, prime rib, broasted chicken (yes, it's a thing), twice-baked potatoes, a Friday fish fry and Old Fashioneds made with Korbel brandy. Also, the interior of a supper club usually has a 'northwoods' vibe.” That's how I remember The Cove. It was wall-to-wall knotty pine. And those walls were covered with the stuffed remains of mallards, walleyes and white-tailed deer. There might have been a moose, too. Or an elk. I don't know. The owner's trophies didn't interest me. What stood out was the bread basket, a horn of plenty stuffed with dinner rolls, saltines and sesame breadsticks. Sesame breadsticks. That was exotic.

I've been reminiscing about things like that lately. It's an orchestrated diversion. I know it's important to stay informed, but the drip-drip-drip of nonstop news can be overwhelming at times. Like medieval water torture. Dr. Krystine Batcho, a professor at Le Moyne College in New York, says reminiscing “helps a person maintain a sense of continuity despite the constant flow of change over time.” For me, it's a form of refuge. An escape to a simpler time. To footraces with Guy Patzke at Lake Delton Elementary. To weekends at a Holidome in the middle of winter. To family dinners at one of those rustic supper clubs. There was nothing fancy about them, but there are times I wish I could go back. I think that's why Paul Markow's Instagram post caught my eye. It took me back to a place I'd never been, but a place I wanted to be.

Paul is a longtime contributor and good friend. He posts a lot of interesting images, but the black-and-white of an old restaurant at 24th and Camelback stood out. It was one of his father's photographs, and it featured a place called the Koko Club. It was intriguing because that intersection is now crowded with glass towers, high-end hotels and chic department stores. Nonetheless, there it was, a midcentury hangout that billed itself as the “Gayest Spot in Arizona,” one that offered “distinctive dining and dancing where all the stars play.” Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald ... those were just some of the stars. And the list of food was impressive, too. Although prime rib wasn't on the menu, it did include a “Broiled Lake Superior Whitefish” dinner for $3.25. The Koko Club was one of our city's many hot spots in the middle of the last century, along with Navarre's, The Chambord, Neptune's Table, Kenny's Grotto, The Golden Drumstick, Knotty Pines and Roma, an Italian pizza joint located just a few blocks from our world headquarters. There was a supper club, too, called The Flame. Jimmy Oreck described his restaurant as “one of the most unusual spots in Arizona” and “Arizona's smartest supper club.” The best part, though, might have been the bar, which tempted Phoenicians with “a bubbling waterfall, sunken gardens, live tropical birds and 'Yum Yum' the playful monkey.” It was a real monkey. Despite the exotic atmosphere at The Flame, Phoenix imbued a small-town vibe in the 1950s. It had a touch of Mayberry, but like Dylan's pivot at Newport, the '50s marked the end of an era. That's when Phoenix began its evolution from a sleepy cowtown to a modern metropolis. The local popula-tion quadrupled, tourism boomed, and places like The Flame and the Koko Club eventually gave way to chain restaurants and food courts. What's worse, wrecking balls wreaked all kinds of havoc. And now, all that's left of most of those places are photographs, including the collection in Bob Markow's archive. Fortunately, it's a big collection.

For several decades, Mr. Markow made thousands of images, and since the beginning of the pandemic, Paul has been sifting through them, like a frenzied mailroom clerk in a Manhattan post office. You'll see a few of his father's photos this month. And more in an upcoming book. I hope some of them take you back to a simpler time and place, whether it's a tropical bar in Arizona, a supper club in Southern Wisconsin or some other suitable refuge somewhere else. And if anyone remembers Yum Yum the playful monkey... man, I wish I could have been there with you. The Cove never had anything like that.