Kenny's Cafe R.I.P.

Some sad news today in the Dominion Post. Kenny Cafe has closed. This was a real Wellington Institution. The place you went to late at night to soak up the beer. I loved this place. Their crumbed lamb chops were, without a doubt, the food of the gods. Even now just thinking about them my tastebuds are getting all misty.


I remember when my friend Corey left NZ to follow his true love to London I promised to take him out for dinner. I think he thought I was going to take him to Logan Brown but instead I lead him to Kenny's Cafe. We stood outside and he looked at me. "Are you kidding?" He said. I smiled and said he had the choice to go anywhere else. He grinned we both went inside. Corey is a big noise in Advertising these days but one of the first ads he did when he was training was an Ad for Kenny's I still remember it. 


It was a billboard and it said "Focaccia? We won't have that language in here mate" Kenny's Cafe. 


Genius and it summed the place up perfectly. When I wrote my first film I set a scene in Kenny's. A scene that summed up my nights in there. It was a love letter to my younger days with my friends Charlie, Waz, Chris, Mike and Seany. Drunken nights where mischief was never far away. The movie was Stickmen  - it was my first film and still easily my best. Money was tight I'd written too many characters and too many scenes. Michelle the producer came to me and said we need to cut down on locations are there any we absolutely can't lose? I said two. The Bucket Fountain and Kenny's Cafe. So it was that Kenny's was immortalized on screen.


Here repeated for your reading pleasure is the Kenny Cafe Scene from Stickmen. Farewell Kenny's you are missed. There's not much of the old ways left. Damn I wish I knew the last time I ate Kenny's Crumbed Lamp Chops was going to be my last time. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to have a little cry...  


INT. KENNY'S CAFE. NIGHT.

Kenny's Cafe is a Wellington institution. Late at night, or early in the morning, Kenny's is the place you always seem to find yourself gravitating to. Taxi drivers, old businessmen and drunks, usually populate it.

The decor is strictly Formica tables with fake wood finishes and greasy plastic display cabinets. As far as the food goes, everything is fried and the salads are nothing but limp pieces of lettuce. Still, late at night, nothing beats Kenny's.

JACK, WAYNE and THOMAS are sitting down to a feed of Kenny's famous fry-ups. WAYNE is busy emptying a bottle of tomato sauce all over his crumbed chops. They're all a bit worse for drink but WAYNE is the worst of all of them.

JACK

Okay so you're stranded on a desert island and you can only have one CD, one video and one book. What are they?

THOMAS

All right, book I'd have The Power of One...

WAYNE

I'd have the Encyclopedia Britannica. It'd take me ages to read and I'd always be finding out about something new...

JACK

Wayne that isn't just one book, that's a whole lot of books. You can only have one book.

WAYNE

Says who?

JACK

It's the rules of the game.

WAYNE

Okay then I'd have the N-Q part of the Encyclopedia.

JACK

Yeah whatever Wayne. So Thomas,which video?

THOMAS

RoboCop.

WAYNE

That's a classic. I'd take Die Hard. One. Not the other two... They were a bunch of arse.

JACK

CD?

THOMAS 

It's a record... Solid Gold Hits number twenty-seven.

JACK

What?

THOMAS 

It's got all my favourite songs on it. Lucy and Ramona. Coward of the County. Come on Eileen. The Devil Went Down to Georgia...

WAYNE 

Wow it's like someone reached inside your soul... I'd take Rodney Rude Rides Again. That's the funniest album ever... When the guy who's just a head gets a hat for his birthday and he says - "Not another fucking hat!"

WAYNE collapses into a drunken laughing fit. JACK and THOMAS stare at him. SARA the waitress comes over. She's got the X-factor - earthy sex appeal, a certain style and her tongue always planted firmly in her cheek.

SARA 

Anything else for you boys?

JACK 

Yeah you're on a desert island and you can only have one CD, one video and one book...

SARA

Easy. Book - The Power of One. Video - RoboCop. CD - Solid Gold Hits number twenty-seven.

JACK and THOMAS look at each other dumbstruck.

THOMAS

But those are...

SARA

Your choices. I know, I overheard you talking before.

SARA shoots THOMAS a winning smile and a wink. With that she leaves and begins clearing another table.

JACK

You are so on...

WAYNE

Not another fucking hat...

CUT TO:

EXT. THE STREET OUTSIDE KENNY'S CAFE. NIGHT.

JACK, THOMAS heave an extremely drunk WAYNE into a taxi. 

CUT TO:

INT. INSIDE THE TAXI. NIGHT.

SARA comes out of Kenny's and hands THOMAS a napkin through the taxi window.

THOMAS

What's this?

SARA

My phone number numbnuts.

THOMAS

Listen I wasn't coming on to you, I just...

SARA

Yeah, yeah save it for someone who cares. This is my number. If you feel like using it I'll make the time...

THOMAS looks at the napkin. 

THOMAS

Thanks ah...

SARA

Sara. It's there at the top.

She points to the napkin. 

THOMAS

I'm...

SARA

Thomas Doyle - I know. See you later RoboCop. 

SARA disappears back inside Kenny's Cafe.

JACK

She's keen.

THOMAS

Yeah but Marie...

JACK (Mocking)

But Marie. But Marie.

THOMAS

She's my girlfriend.

JACK

Does she know this?

THOMAS

We live together.

JACK

She’s never gonna find out about a little waitress fun...

WAYNE 

I loved Linda.

THOMAS and JACK groan. They've heard this one before.

WAYNE (CONT'D) 

One minute she's there... The next she's gone. She was my honey...

CUT TO: 

INT. WAYNE'S FLAT. NIGHT.

Flashback sequence. WAYNE'S flat is a small one bedroom affair cluttered with model planes, a beer can collection, empty pot noodle containers, rugby magazines, an airbrush painting of a bare-breasted Amazon and lots of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movie posters.

WAYNE is sitting on the black fake leather sofa playing Playstation on the TV. LINDA walks in the front door behind him.

WAYNE

(Without taking his eyes off the game)

Hi honey.

LINDA looks at him and waits for him to say something else. Finally she storms off into the bedroom. When she comes back she has a suitcase. She waits for a reaction - nothing - she leaves through the front door slamming it behind her.

WAYNE (CONT'D) 

(Again without taking his eyes off the game) 

Hi honey.

INT. INSIDE THE TAXI. NIGHT. 

WAYNE is all teary-eyed.

WAYNE

I loved her and she left me.

JACK

They all leave mate. They all leave - it's part of the game. 

THOMAS

Here we go.

JACK

There's two kinds of women out there mate. Bitches and sluts.

THOMAS

How do you tell the difference?

JACK 

A slut sleeps with everyone and a bitch sleeps with everyone but you.

THOMAS

You need help mate. Hang on why aren't we driving anywhere? 

We pull out to reveal that there's no driver.

JACK 

(laughing)

Cause the driver's in there having dinner.

JACK points into Kenny's Cafe. We see the driver eating in the window he smiles and waves.

CUT TO:

I'm tempted to change that last line to FADE TO BLACK. Sigh.