Recently a Berkeley mainstay announced its closing, a large cafe’ in Downtown Berkeley called Au Coquelet.

Me and my friends frequently referred to it as “Cafe Hell”.

Au Coquelet Cafe is a big part of my personal history. When I attended Berkeley High School myself and my friends would go to Au Coquelet to drink coffee when we were cutting class. Eventually we started using it as a meeting place on the weekends since it was right in the center of Berkeley. Whether we were going to a club in West Berkeley are winding our way to a party in the Berkeley Hills, it was the ideal spot to meet.

Welcome to Hell! Or at least bad coffee…

It was also an ideal place to go if you wanted to know what was happening, for this was the days before cell phones and text messaging. (I’m old!) Since we all habitually went there, people would just happen by the cafe’ to see if they could find other people wandering around on the weekend, looking for parties or shows or just to find a few more friends to go drink in one of the parks nearby. (We were also underage at the time!) So many of us teenagers started congregating there that eventually Au Coquelet started hiring security guards and big burly “Bussers” to harass us and kick people out.

We went there so often that eventually the nickname “Cafe’ Hell” came into vogue, and we all started calling it that.

A very young me in Au Coquelet,
when I was just a teenager!

After my clubbing and drinking days I didn’t go by Au Coquelet as much anymore. If I wanted to wile away time in a cafe’ I would go to Caffè Mediterraneum on Telegraph where the coffee was really good and it had a solid bohemian atmosphere, a perfect place to work on your great American novel or just read a book. And Gaylord’s on Piedmont in Oakland had delicious latte’s with nice people working there and a good, relaxed atmosphere. Unfortunately, both of those places are gone now.

Au Coquelet was always crowded, and the coffee was just unbearably bad. The only thing you could say about their coffee was that it had caffeine, and that was it. I still used it as a meeting place on occasion, as it was centrally located and just a few blocks from the subway. I also used it as a meeting place for a German conversation group that I had for awhile. But after my party days I didn’t go there unless it was out of necessity. Gone were the days of casually wandering by just for kicks, and if I wasn’t using the place for that, I just wasn’t that tempted to go there.

Many people went there for the same reason: It was a good place to meet. And it was always open quite late, well past midnight, which meant it was frequently full of UC Berkeley students and Vista College students studying into the late hours. It was especially crowded just before midterms and finals, virtually all of the tables covered with notebooks and textbooks.

A lot of people are sad to see it go since they have so many memories there. My Facebook feed is crowded with laments for the place’s passing. My main reaction to the news of its closing was surprise. It had been there for so long it never occurred to me it might one day disappear. I remember hanging out there with many people who are still good friends of mine to this day, but I also hung out there with a lot of so-called “friends”, people who I thought were my friends back in my party days, but who only wanted to exploit me because I was able to get my hands on drugs and alcohol and they begged me to drive them around since I was one of their few friends who owned his own car. Remembering those cafe’ leeches along with the rude employees who treated us like crap and the near-undrinkable coffee means that I don’t have a whole lot of fond memories of the place.

Still, I felt compelled to write an essay about Au Coquelet. It was a significant post in my life history, and what should be a sad moment of pointed nostalgia just isn’t there. Au Coquelet is going by the wayside, and I can’t say I’m moved one way or another. Honestly, if I could trade Au Coquelet for the Caffè Mediterraneum or the UC Theater, (Back when it was still a movie house,) I would do so without hesitation.

So long Cafe’ Hell. I guess I’m supposed to miss you, but I just… don’t.

Berkeleyside article about Au Coquelet’s closing.

A hip n’ happenin’ clubber doing
what Au Coquelet was perfect for:
Hanging out!