Le Morte de Cabo’s

Where’s our money?

Johnny Cabo’s was a landmark. My first time at Cabo’s was during a trip down to check out the law schools in the area. Cannon raved about the place and insisted that we go. Taking one bite out of that delicious Texas Burger, my spirits soared. It was delicious. They also had their own beer, Lone Star, that tasted suspiciously like PBR. Factor in a festive, Texican motif and you have a winner. I was in heaven.

Within a few months, I found myself living in Cannon’s apartment, called down on the last second to a summer session at Rutgers Law. After everyone had left to go back to their own lives, I was alone. Sitting in a vaguely unfamiliar apartment that was now “home”, I felt awful. I did what any guy would do: I went to Cabo’s for dinner and drank heavily.

After I had been down for awhile, I became buddies with a guy I’ll call “Steve”. “Steve” would come down to the apartment, hang out on the porch, smoke cigars, and bring, what we called, “good times”. When Cannon would come down to check in on me (and to make sure that I hadn’t destroyed his place), we would sit around for what seemed like hours figuring out where we good for dinner/libation. Without fail, one of us would finally break down and say what the rest of us had been thinking: “Let’s just go to Cabo’s.” It was the place to be. Anytime guests came down, we’d always end up there. Everybody loved the place.

With time, Cabo’s changed. It began to close down the kitchen earlier and focus more on becoming a hot spot at night. At first, we welcomed those changes, especially on $.25 draft nights. But something happened; the familiar waitresses stopped working there. It would only open for dinner on some nights and the bar on others. There were still good times, but something was different. The last great night there, it was me, “Steve”, Cannon, and Mac, a buddy from home. Late into the evening, Cannon broke a glass. We had a hearty laugh and switched tables. Shortly after, Mac turned to me and asked, “Want me to break this glass?” Of course I did. He dropped it on the floor. It broke. We left. That was it.

Just like that, Cabo’s would never be the same when we went back. Within a few weeks, it closed down. There wasn’t even a sign.

I’m telling this story because I was in the old neighborhood last Friday. I drove through the old complex and stopped in at the Wawa, where I had been every day for a about a year. Curiosity got the better of me and I walked over to the Cabo’s from the Wawa parking lot. It looked exactly the same as it had months earlier. There were still a lot of dusty fixtures inside. No one had obviously been in there in a long time. The only sign of human life was a note left on the dust of the front door:

“Where’s our money?”