Places I Like to Write: East Side Cafe

By Sharon Mack
iBerkshires Columnist
02:05PM / Sunday, April 05, 2009

Print | Email |

Important

0

Interesting

0

Funny

0

Awesome

0

Infuriating

0

Ridiculous

0

PITTSFIELD, Mass.

I like to write at home in my living room with my laptop on my knees. My pug dog asleep on my left, my Maltese snuggled on my right.

There's a quiet that comes from their little warm bodies that allows my often frantic brainwaves to quiet and go into another zone. My creative zone. The place where no one else can go. Where I alone set the scene, create the characters and write life into them. 

But sometimes, that's not good enough. I need more; I need motion. I need noise to get the old brain cells working. To rejuvenate them. That's when I move to a busier setting. 

One of those settings is the East Side Cafe, especially early on a Wednesday night before the crowd begins to show up. I walk over at 4:30 or so since it's located next door to me, and take my usual seat in the first booth.

Wednesday is the best night because it's on Wednesdays that they serve the best of my favorite comfort foods: a plateful of manicotti, raviolis, gnocchi or linguini with extra sauce and extra meatballs, served with green salad and crusty Italian bread. A glass of Merlot doesn't hurt either. 

I love that I can go there and they already know what I will order for my beverage. It's comfortable.  It's easy. 
"Merlot?" Ann asks. And she's off to fill my glass before taking my pasta order for the evening. 

Courtesy Capitano family The booths fill up quick on Wednesday nights at East Side Cafe in Pittsfield.

After the salad, a few bits of bread and sips of wine, I get myself ready to write.   

I pull out my pad and pencil — it is time for the old-fashioned way — and as I slowly chew and drink my way through my dinner, I again find I can bring on those scenes and characters. 

Often, I am inspired by the folks around me. The mother and her two kids, the family that comes in with grandparents and all, the men at the bar laughing and enjoying a beer together after a day's work — a habit they've developed a long time ago, the warmth of the owners who cook, wait the tables and tend the bar. It's the atmosphere, I think, that inspires me. A "family and friend's" atmosphere, a local atmosphere. 

And then when I am finished, I pick up my evening's work and head back home. I am ready to type it into my computer and I am surprised to learn that there is very little I need to edit. 

Hmm, it must have been the atmosphere ... .

East Side Cafe is located on the corner of Lombard and Newell streets and serves homemade pastas on Wednesday night during the winter months and pizza (voted the Best in the Berkshires) on Thursday through Sunday from 4:30 to closing.

Sharon Mack is a member of the Berkshires Writers Room and is working on a mystery novel.

• North Adams Events: Feb.10-14
• Pittsfield Solons Talk Art, Culture and Politics At Forum
• City To Move Forward With Methadone, Suboxone Regulation
• Cultural Pittsfield: Feb. 10 - 16
• Lenox Library Planning 'Party of the Century'