A couple of weeks ago, I walked into a little old but new brassiere in Karen and found myself in the enclaves of what used to be a church.
I was alone except for the owner, Emma Forbes, who was compiling the previous night's tabs and restocking supplies. Inside, I got the feeling that I was back in time, more than a century.
The establishment looked like a salon bar in an 80’s British movie. Old Whiskey barrels served as tables surrounded by tall barstools with seats made from old wood. The bar counter seemed to be made from even older wood lacking the garnish of a proper finish.
The old in the bar wasn’t in the bourgeois antique style that would plaster monarchs' palaces but just wood as old as sin itself with roughshod finishing. It was almost rustically pleasant.
The only thing that looked relatively new was a Harman and Kardon speaker that bursted out music in gentle spasms. The roofing was made from tiles with a distinctive 1865 emblazoned on them and with a fading red lacquering.
They had a near wild west theme and if a gentleman walked in cowboy boots with little stirrups on his heels, I would not have been surprised.
Emma told me that the 1865 bar's roots go back to an old colonial church built in Mombasa in 1865. “The church was demolished two years ago. It was dismantled and brought to Karen. Most of its parts were used to make the 1865 bar.”
I sat there for hours behind the counter nursing a sweaty beer. The bartender didn’t talk much. It was a slow Friday afternoon and I was left to the reprieve of my thoughts until another gentleman walked in, a bit buzzed and in a chatty mood.
I discovered his home in the countryside was a stone-throw from mine and for that he picked up the tab.
So, my general impression? The menu wouldn’t kill your pockets and I would wager that is as good enough of a sermon as you would get from a former church.