by When I was in my twenties I used to go to a bar on 84th Street called the Oke Doke. The name was technically the Oke Doke Restaurant, but it wasn’t a restaurant, it was a tiny bar with no tables, (that I remember) a jukebox and a shuffle bowl game. Elsie, the owner, wouldn’t open the door for everyone. You’d knock, she looked you over, and maybe she’d let you in.
Sometime after I turned forty, I went back to the Oke Doke with my friend Chris. Elsie was like the Miss Havisham of bar owners, it turned out. I wrote about the visit in my book, Waiting For My Cats to Die. An abridged version:
“The place was practically unchanged. The same singers were on the jukebox: Frank Sinatra, who is the most represented, Al Jolson, Patsy Cline, Bobby Darin, Marion Lanza, The Ink Spots, and Peggy Lee. I recognized the few knick-knacks behind the bar, like a cheap brandy snifter filled with 20 year old, now smell-less pot-pourri, as well as the shuffle bowl game on the way to the bathroom. Nothing has moved in eighteen years, nothing has been spruced up, nothing has been renovated. It was dingier and less cheerful …
“Elsie was smaller than I remembered, and grayer. “I’ve been running this place since 1950,” she tells me. The guys I used to come in here with—who weren’t exactly the nicest guys in the world—still come around, she told me. She clearly adored them. She called them “my boys” and told me what they are all up to.
“The three of us talked about men and children until she buzzed in a group of six young Eastern European men who, recognizing the honor they had been given, thanked her very politely, and took the stools to our right. A little while later she buzzed in a handsome man roughly my age who walked in with a very lovely young woman in her twenties. They sat to my left. “This is my third time in here this week,” he announced to the room. I liked him at once. Elsie pulled out a guestbook. “Someone gave this to me in 1986,” she said. It listed the dates, names, addresses and, best part, it had a space for comments.
“I scanned for familiar names. I found one of Elsie’s boys, someone I used to come here with. “I will always love you … Your Tallboy.” (He was gigantic, I remember.) I found his brother’s name. He’d written, “When will I be known only for my own good deeds?” A touching question …”
I would do anything to read that guestbook now, slowly and carefully. I couldn’t at the time. It’s just the kind of thing I live for whenever I research and write. The comments created such a perfect picture of the place and the people who used to drink there. The Tallboy was a guy named Ray who I’d dated a few times. Ray had, like, a billion brothers, and I don’t remember which one wrote “When will I be known only for my own good deeds?” but I still think it’s a touching question. I wonder if he ever went on to perform any good deeds.
Sometime after, I went back to the Oke Doke, and there was a sign on the door saying that it was closed and Elsie was in a nursing home. I went to visit her. The place wasn’t bad at all, but it was a terrible visit. Elsie was miserable and angry to be there, and she just fumed the whole time, it was awful. She told me her boys visited her and I believed her. Like I said, they weren’t the nicest people I’ve ever known, but as far as I could tell they had genuine affection for Elsie, so I could see them visiting her.
The site of the former Elsie’s Oke Doke, from Google maps. The orange awning is where Elsie’s used to be. I wished I’d taken a picture at the time. I couldn’t find a picture of it online. She ran it for roughly forty years, there must be a picture somewhere.
Update: Scroll down for a picture of Elsie, sent to me by Kevin Connell. Thank you, Kevin!
Hi Michael, I’m still looking. Thank you for sharing your memories. There is no one Elsie or the Oke Doke anymore.
I remember… and so miss my time on the upper east side. I was a regular at Elsie’s .. often needing to buy Elsie a shot for my excessive cursing lol … Funny story.. Jack Nicholson was thrown out for excessive cursing… lol … it’s a totally different vibe now at the UES (that’s what the call my old hood now)… I live on. 80th and York.. close to the Cherokee Post office..
Gustave, I love that she threw out Jack Nicholson!
Bud Ponies, shuffleboard, Edith on the juke box. It was our go-to spot for civilized drinking in the 80s.
I think the Jack Nicholson story has been “adjusted.” I wasn’t there that particular night but my understanding is different. A friend said, “Elsie wouldn’t let Jack Nicholson in!” In turn, Elsie said “That’s not true. He wouldn’t follow the rules. He didn’t buzz and ask to come in and I couldn’t see him. So I didn’t let him in. I would have ifvhe followed the rules like everyone else.”
I learned the cussing penalty the hard way. My beer bill was quite a bit higher than I expected. Turns out she tracked how much I cussed and applied the penalty. Only time I made the mistake.
People often mistook how sharp her memory was. I remember being at the bar one Friday night. I had just flown in from Chicago. On board I had been chatting with a flight attendsnt who had lived in Manhattan several years earlier. That night I mentioned that I had been talking to a flight attendant earlier that day who had been a customer. “What airline?” She asked. United. “I only had 2 girls who were with United at that time. What did she look like? What else do you remember?” I mentioned something or other that clicked and Elsie said, “Oh! It had to be . . .” She went on to describe the flight attendant perfectly, what she drank, her friends, etc etc! Truly remarkable indivudual.
I had many great nights there that I would love to relive. I went regulalrly with a rotating cast of male friends, and I’m proud to say we were always lively but well behaved.By some stroke of fortune, I was Elsie’s favorite among our group and the other guys would kid her about me being her “boyfriend”. I probably brought a dozen people there at different times and every one of them was charmed with the place. One night, I struck up a conversation with a ridiculously beautiful young woman who was there with an older lady. We hit it off (the younger one and I), and laughed, played the jukebox and shuffle bowl for hours. When I asked for her number, she told me she was going home to Australia in a day or two and wouldn’t be back. She was in town representing Australia in a beauty pageant, and the older lady was her chaperone. It’s a nice memory I hold of what could have been. Thank you for this post; it’s therapeutic for those of us who were there.
Tom, thank you so much for stopping by. I just lost my oldest friend and I am wallowing in nostalgia. It would be nice to relive some of the better days. I wish Elsie’s was still around to go to, or someplace like it. But there’s nothing like it anymore. I’m sorry you didn’t end up with the beauty queen, but I hope you ended up with someone even better!
Stacy, My condolences to you and your friends who share your loss. I wish you all the strength and grace you need to bear this. Thank you for letting me, and many others, revive cherished memories here.
Thank you for your kind thoughts.