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Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

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Serendipitous Menu Item in Montreal

It was the best of times, not the worst of times, as my wife and I strolled the Old Port streets of Montreal recently.

Celebrating our 36th wedding anniversary, we were at the launching point of a cruise that would take us to four more Canadian port cities before a stop in Bar Harbor, Maine, and ending in Boston.

The cherry on top of our travels, for me, would be a post-cruise visit to Mark Twain’s House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. As I’ve chronicled previously, I collect visits to famous writer’s homes the way others collect antique clocks or baseball cards.

Touring where Samuel Clemens penned some of his most important works – including “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” – promised to be well worth a three-hour drive each way from Boston.

In Old Montreal, in a restaurant we stumbled upon while looking for another, serendipity winked and whispered: “Follow me across the room, Woody, and add another gem to your collection right now.”

The wink. At the bottom left corner on the front of the menu at L’usine De Spaghetti appeared this small headline: “DICKENS GRIFFONNE.”

The whisper. “In May of 1842, Charles Dickens visited Montreal and wrote the notes for A Tale of Two Cities in the back room of this very restaurant.”

When our waiter arrived, instead of inquiring about the specials of the evening, I asked: “Is the back room still around?”

“Oui,” came the answer and he pointed me in the right direction.

Instantly, I excused myself and less than 30 paces away arrived at a stone wall bearing a wooden plaque reading “PLACE DICKENS.” Nearby was a gild-framed portrait of the wild-bearded author.

Through connecting the doorway awaited a pub-like room that also had the feel of a library thanks to numerous built-in bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. While the tables and booths were too crowded for me to peruse the specific titles, a waitress assured me the shelves included a copy of “A Tale of Two Cities.”

What a perfect place, a distant cousin to a modern coffee shop, for a writer to write. In my mind’s eye, in the corner booth in the far rear, I could see Dickens working on his most famous masterpiece.

Already well known for penning “The Pickwick Papers” and “Oliver Twist,” in the late spring of 1842 the literary Londoner traveled to Niagara Falls, Toronto and Queenston before spending two weeks in Montreal.

At that time, this back room actually comprised the entire restaurant. Dickens, meanwhile, was staying next door at Rasco’s Inn, which he called “the worst hotel in the whole wide world.”

Is it possible this lovely pub and loathsome inn inspired the famous opening line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . ”? It is pleasing to think so.

On the other hand, because “A Tale of Two Cities” was not published until 1859 – nearly two decades after Dickens’ Montreal visit – assertions of the novel’s origins reaching back to this room could be seen as a fanciful “George Washington Slept Here” claim.

No matter, I choose to believe.

I also choose to add Charles Dickens to my writerly collection. Technically, of course, the back room of L’usine De Spaghetti was not his home. Also, he purportedly only wrote the notes for “A Tale of Two Cities” here, not the full manuscript. All the same, with an asterisk, I am counting it.

My tale of six cities will continue next week.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
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