Zum Hecht · workers and rough edges

The curb in front is often crowded with men loading into white vans, a kind of informal labor market known in Berlin, as an "Arbeiterstrich". Every morning they gather here waiting for short term construction work or day jobs. The area has a long reputation for being rough around the edges. Tagesspiegel once called it Berlin's "Wichtigste Handelplatz für harte Drogen" "Berlin's main marketplace for hard drugs".

But go on, if you're feeling bold, step inside Zum Hecht. Otherwise hang around here while I talk.

The place is dark and smokey, and supposedly the owners never got a key made, due to it never closing.

Toward the back to the right, you'll find a small buffet where free pickles and the occasional Häpchen or sandwiches are. Grab one. And let me read you something Nabokov once wrote.

A memory of a Berlin pub very much like this one. “That's a very poor guide”, my usual drinking companion says glumly.

“Who cares about how you took a streetcar and went to Berlin Zoo?” The pub in which he and I are sitting is divided into two parts, one large, the other somewhat smaller. A billiard table occupies the center of the former. There are a few tables in the corners. Bottles stand on shelves behind the bar. There, under the mirror, the child still sits alone, but he is now looking our way. From where he can see the inside of the tavern, the green island of the billiard table, the ivory ball he is forbidden to touch, (and perhaps the free pickle.) Whatever happens to him in life, he will always remember the picture he saw every day of his childhood from the little room where he was fed his soup. He will remember the billiard table and the coatless evening visitor who used to draw back his sharp white elbow and hit the ball with his cue, the blue-gray cigar smoke and the din of voices and my empty right sleeve and scarred face and his father behind the bar filling a mug for me from the tap. I can't understand what you see down there, says my friend turning back toward me. What indeed? How can I demonstrate to him that I have glimpsed somebody's future recollection?"

Now, if you went in, step back outside and let your eyes adjust to the daylight.