Vršovice buzz

There's nothing like crushing at your favorite joint long past midnight after you've had a rough day or just feel like a friendly face bringing you beers after you've seen the best movie ever that moved your gut around and really pushed your sense of reality further.

I'm thinking wooden chairs and tables, enough space to stretch your arms without touching the person at the table next to you, some air-conditioning making the smoke you blow out of your cigarette in deep thought off your face, dimmer light, Pilsner, Bernard or Svijany, or even a decent glass of a top-notch Moravian wine, some nakládaný hermelín (google this if you need to) and most of all, close to home so that you know that even if you live in Vršovice, you can still make it home without having to spend time in a taxi thinking about what best conversation to strike up with the driver.

Unfortunately, through my year-plus life in upper Vršovice, my friends and I weren't able to find such a place.

What you get is a rough reality of various restaurants like Fama, Neklid, or the pizza place just down the street close to Vršovické náměstí, what is it called again?..that, though they serve decent food and even offer the luxury of a summer terrace in the summer, still force you to smell the food being cooked for the other guests and then kick you out just when it gets dark. Then, past half past ten, all that awaits you is a wide selection of non-stop hernas that will welcome you with their dazzling light from the slot machines and cheesy MTV videos that offend your view any way you look.

Don't get me wrong, I love the "hood". I've lived in Žižkov, Old Town, even Ďáblice or Jižní Město where the choice is close to nothing, so I've tasted it all, but being this close to the city buzz, I still feel that Vršovice should have a place where one can have a decent beer or wine past 11 any day of the week and won't have to put up with numerous mutations of rainbow colors that offend your eyes and Britney Spears yelling her new hit-to-be in your ear.

Of course there's still Nano café, a small family-like place that will put up with you until as late as midnight on occassions (if the staff is having a party of their own going on meanwhile, that is), but of course, you have to be lucky to catch them at that sort of a mood.

So, my point of writing this blog is perhaps this. I'm calling onto all of you entrepreneurial types who are looking for a new idea to spark your interest. Please, please, please, go and look around Vršovice and if you see a "space for rent" on one of the main streets, open up a bar there that will welcome all those desperate late night owls such as myself and my friends and give us a space where we can spend hours on end talking without kicking us out before we've run out of topics to talk about.

We'll be there till the cash runs out, I can promise you that.