When certain restaurants close, we lose a piece of our souls. For me, some are restaurants I frequented — Duff’s, Riddles, Beffa’s, Sunshine Inn — and others — Kemoll’s and Giovani’s — are places that were reserved for special occasions.
The latest cultural touchstone to fall is Uncle Bill’s Pancakes on South Kingshighway.
It had two personalities — a morning-afternoon personality and a late-night personality. I liked them both.
Today I am reprinting a column I wrote in 1993 about its late-night personality.
In those days, the column carried a subtitle, “On My Own.” In Daniel Pfaff’s excellent biography of Joseph Pulitzer III, “No Ordinary Joe,” Pfaff explained that Pulitzer wanted to fire me, but the editors intervened and suggested that “On My Own” would signal to the readers that my sometimes distasteful musings did not express or reflect the views of the Post-Dispatch.
People are also reading…
So my career survived. I wish we could say the same about Uncle Bill’s Pancakes.
Originally published Friday, July 30, 1993:
On My Own: Straight guy finds pancakes, love an arresting mix
Event though I am firmly on the side of William Pepper, I was sorry to see the city of St. Louis drop its charges against him.
His was a case that deserved a public hearing.
The incident in question happened late on a Saturday night in May at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House on South Kingshighway.
Uncle Bill’s Pancake House is a fine restaurant most of the time, but it is an especially fine restaurant on a Saturday night. That’s because all sorts of people converge on the pancake house on a Saturday night.
On the night of the incident, Pepper and his wife arrived at the restaurant at about 10:30. They sat in a booth, side by side.
At the next booth, the booth facing the Peppers, were three lesbians. Their names are Marnie, Wendy and Sally.
“Sally and I were holding hands,” said Marnie. “We didn’t have our arms around each other, or anything. Sally kissed me on the side of the face, and then gave me a quick peck on the mouth. Nothing passionate.”
That brought a waitress over. She asked the young women to refrain from any public displays of affection. Some customers have’ complained, the waitress said.
Well, sure. Saturday night or not, the pancake house is located in south St. Louis, an area known for its social conservatism.
Sally, however, was upset.
Well, sure. South St. Louis or not, this is 1993, and people are not allowed to discriminate against a person because of his or her sexual orientation.
Sally, sensing that just such discrimination was occurring, went to the hostess and said it wasn’t fair to pick on lesbians for displaying affection while heterosexuals were doing the same thing.
To buttress her argument, she pointed out the Peppers. Frankly, at this juncture of our story, there is some disagreement.
“I might have had my arm around my wife,” said Pepper.
“They had kissed each other several times, peck-type kisses,” said Marnie.
At any rate, the hostess and the waitress must have felt a huge sense of relief upon seeing Pepper with his arm around his wife. Nobody likes being accused of discrimination, and here was the solution. Even the score by going after a non-protected species a straight, middle-aged white guy. (Pepper is 53.)
So the waitress went over and told Pepper to refrain from any more public displays of affection.
“The waitress said słó±đ’d had complaints about us,” said Pepper. “I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what she was talking about.”
Not surprisingly, an argument ensued.
The lesbians joined in on Pepper’s side. (They had never really objected to his public displays of affection. ÁńÁ«ĘÓƵ were simply miffed that somebody had objected to theirs.)
The Peppers and the lesbians were asked to leave. The argument continued, and the manager said łó±đ’d call the police.
“I said, â€Fine. Let them arrest me for putting my arm around my wife,’” said Pepper.
“We waited for the police,” said Marnie, “and when they didn’t come, the man [Pepper] said łó±đ’d call them. And he did.”
According to the police, there wasn’t much dispute about what had happened. That is, everybody agreed that Pepper and the lesbians had been asked to leave because of public displays of affection.
The cops asked Pepper and the lesbians to leave. The lesbians did. Pepper didn’t.
“He continued to rant and rave,” says the police report.
So the cops arrested Pepper for general peace disturbance and trespassing. He was taken to the superstation on Sublette. His wife followed in their car.
“We tried to calm him down. We explained that his wife could post $100 bond and he could go home,” said one of the cops. “She was right there, and she had the money. But he said he wouldn’t pay any bond.”
The cops, of course, cannot make a person post bond. When Pepper refused, he was taken to jail.
“Why should I pay a bond to stay out of jail when I hadn’t done anything wrong in the first place?” Pepper asked me.
He spent the night in the holdover downtown.
Much later, the city dismissed the charges when the owner of the pancake house indicated that he didn’t want to prosecute.
In a way, that’s too bad. It would have been a heck of a trial.
On one hand, a restaurant ought to have the right to enforce certain behaviors. You can’t smoke in a no-smoking section. If a public display of affection is bothering customers, the management certainly has the right to demand that the offending parties stop.
On the other hand, Pepper’s behavior wasn’t really bothering the people who complained. He was picked on, I think, because he was a straight, middle-aged white guy. So goes life in 1993.