The details accrue to paint a picture of a woman refining her craft, where that craft is the running of a small, community diner for the express benefit of neighbors. Like the “Living National Treasures” of Japan (literal name: Preservers of Intangible Cultural Properties), Bea plied this craft all but in defiance of a world that would have it slicked up, sold out, and repeated. Surely, as the neighborhood began down its fateful path towards manic real-estate bubbles and hurricane-force gentrification, the pressures on Bea’s space to change would have been powerful.
Read: Saint Bea, Hagiography of a Greenpoint Hamburger Matron, by Jamie Hook.