The Hat

It’s nearing midnight and I’m heading west on the 60 when my gas light flicks on. I still have a ways to go till I’m home so I take the next exit; Atlantic Boulevard. As I sit at the stoplight to turn into the shell station, the neon signs of “The Hat” catch my eyes. World Famous Pastrami. I see through the perfectly transparent front windows a scene that reminds me of a Edward Hopper painting. A few patrons sit beneath fluorescent white lights as a crew of cooks bustle behind the counter to make what I assume to be the pastrami in question. My stomach rumbles, and I follow its hungry will. I park, and walk into a place that seems not to have changed for a handful of decades. I choose the most obvious menu options: Pastrami, small fries, medium Coke. I get a paper number and sit and a two-person booth of cracked faux-leather from the 1980s. I watch as the cashier slides order after order attached by a binder clip down a clothes-line, which spans the kitchen. And I watch as the cooks respond with both a robotic efficiency, yet human enthusiasm.

Five minutes later, I am handed two paper bags that seem too heavy for what I ordered. And indeed when I open them, I find that the small fries occupy half of the bag and weigh enough to have their own gravitational pull. I sample a few and they taste…like fries. I unwrap the pastrami sandwich and gaze upon more pastrami than I have had in the last few years, falling out of a standard hoagie. It’s enough food for a small family, yet here I sit alone, preparing for battle. It’s delicious. Between bites I contemplate life, looking out through those simple, charming windows at the light night traffic that zips by on a rare, mirror-like, rain covered highway. Though I was full five or so bites ago, I still have half a sandwich and a pound of fries to go. But I’m here for it, loving every second.

The charm one feels with a visit to The Hat is quintessentially old-American, and in its transparent simplicity, one finds easy peace. In a world of qr-code menus, apple pay, food delivery robots, The Hat offers an escape from the ultra-complicated, extra-automated 21st century. A time machine I’ll stop by any time. 10/10.