Gay Zurich Café Odeon – nostalgia is made of this

Suzy Size fled gay Pattaya: Disenchantment with gay Thailand leads to grand gay European tour

By Suzy Size, normally based in gay Pattaya, reporting live from gay Zurich

Your heroine Suzy Suzy finally left Café Rathaus together with Lucas, the highly cultivated architect, that just recently had visited gay Pattaya for sexual and other pleasures. And now they really left Café Rathaus, walking, naturally, up Limmatquai for famous Grand Café Odeon, talking in that highly cultivated Zurich way. How many times did Suzy walk up that scenic Limmatquai from Rathaus (city parliament) to Bellevue where Odeon is located? Passing the monument besides Wasserkiche for Huldrych Zwingli, a puritan, that has influenced the behaviour of Zurich and its inhabitants for centuries. (He was not exactly gay friendly, he was not very sanuk friendly, as observers in Pattaya might observe correctly.) As usual there are those horrible pigeons – rats of the air – flying around in droves at scenic Limmatquai, probably fed by hundreds of irresponsible lonely old ladies – those pigeons and the old ladies should both be poisoned by the Zurich city counsel - shitting right on Zwinglis head. Even such a puritan deserves better.

And now we have reached famous Café Odeon which is modelled after the well known Viennese Café Houses of the twenties. A lot of marble, a lot of brass, a lot of mirrors, a lot of Gemuetlichkeit, of course. For many, many years Odeon was the natural meeting place of artists, intellectuals, actors, play writes, directors. Lenin used to come here and the Dadaists. (Are the Dadaists known in Pattaya?) The drug addicts and the drug dealers came in the seventies, almost took Odeon over, almost destroyed the place. The owner cut the it in half, reduced the size of the Grand Café Odeon, rented the other part, first to a silly clothes shop, then to a drug store. It is still divided today. What a shame.

When Suzy Size was young, thirty years ago, she came to Grand Café Odeon every day, rain or shine. It was one of the few places in Zurich where they were allowed to stay open till 2 am, all the other bars, restaurants etc. had to close at midnight. This is partly due to said Mr. Zwingli and his puritan followers and those rules were strictly enforced. Zurich – in general - was quite gay unfriendly then too. There was always a mixed crowd in those years at Odeon, night owls, actors, artists, a few intellectuals and drunks, some very funny, some not so funny. And there was always a high percentage of gays, even some lonely hustlers sometimes. The Odeon was for years the favourite hang out and hunting grounds for Suzy Size. Here she would come after the theatre where she went to see a play or had performed in one as an extra, when she still was studying at the Zurich University. Together with a gay soul mate they would drink Dole (Swiss red wine). Talking about highly interesting topics, but always keeping an eye out there on the crowd, the heart is a lonely hunter, trying to get a smile returned, then offering a drink, hopefully starting a conversation that led to leaving the place together. But if nothing could be arranged and they sadly stayed till closing time, they were asked by gay Mr. Mueller, the then rather brute manager, through the loud speaker: “Go home scum bags, it is closing hour.”

What is happening at Café Odeon these days? Is it still a formidable hunting ground for the visiting international and local gay crowds? Read more tomorrow of the adventures of Suzy Size in gay Europe, exclusively on Sticky Rice Gay Asia Guide and soon also covering Gay Europe and therefore becoming a gay European, Asian and Australian guide and in no time covering the gay world as a truly international gay guide that gives you all the clickable links possible.