The Thousands

About a month ago I was on East Terrace on a Friday night, alone and killing time in the warm summer rain. A cafe seemed to spring out of nowhere, with its outdoor seating scattered around the front, side and back (revolutionary!) and a mess of oil paints and half finished artworks littering the footpath (how ‘walking along the Seine’!) It was such a Midnight In Paris moment that I felt sure that the next time I went past, this lamp-lit, wood-trimmed mirage would have disappeared into thin air.

But surprise surprise, it wasn’t midnight in Paris but 9pm in Adelaide, and by the time I made it back the Ride and Fall Temperance Lounge was still solidly standing. Hemmingway was nowhere to be seen. There was still something bohemian and confusing about the place, not least beginning with its name. The handwritten menu (of which there only appears to be one copy of for the entire place), the flowers and artworks that decorate the room and the well-meaning but slightly vague staff are a complete antidote to the slick, carefully curated cosmopolitanism of Rundle Street.

Time spent in Ride and Fall has clearly had an effect on me – I’ve started religiously reading my horoscope and dreaming of a summer spent shut up indoors drinking red wine and painting portraits of my muse. Maybe it’s something in the coffee? Or the array of baked goods, smoothies and frappes? In any case, I’m still waiting for Ride and Fall to disappear just as mysteriously as it appeared.