Jack Kerouac Drank Here
Rustic Cabins, the suburban Detroit hangout of the King of the Beats
Okay, maybe it’s not such a claim to fame; where didn’t the father of the beat movement toss back a few.
But on an early March day oh, so many Bloody Marys ago, we stopped at the Rustic Cabins tavern on Kercheval in Grosse Pointe Park to salute TJ’s birthday, and my guess is that—flat screen TVs and smoking ban aside—the joint hasn’t changed much since 1944 when Jack Kerouac drank there. We should have worn our berets.
The “King of the Beats” was born on March 12, 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, and is probably best known for his 1957 novel On the Road. Kerouac ever-so-briefly lived and imbibed in the Detroit area while married to Edie Parker, a Grosse Pointe gal he’d met in New York when they were Columbia University students. She was roomie with Joan Vollmer, whose friends included William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac.
Classic bar decor, simple but tasty Bloody Marys, down-to-earth bartender
Edie Parker was the first of Kerouac’s three wives; she wrote about their relationship and the beginning of the beat movement in You’ll be Okay: My Life with Jack Kerouac.
Their house was just a few blocks from the Rustic Cabins, and the bar made a convenient hangout for Kerouac. He didn’t dig the Detroit scene, though, and split after a few months. Their marriage dissolved after just two years.
The legendary Kerouac died in Florida of alcohol-related issues October 21, 1969. He and Edie kept in touch until his death; she died in 1993. Her book was published posthumously, in 2007.
Kerouac may have jotted ideas in his ever-present notebook in this log-lined booth
Read more about the writer’s connection Detroit in a Metro Times article by John Cohassey and this Grosse Pointe Patch story by Elizabeth M. Vogel.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.