It seems to have never aged past the childhood that it never had back in the 50s. It’s an antique much like many of the items kept upstairs.

Brady Street Pharmacy is the kind of place where legendary tales are told. It may be a tale about the chaos that happened last night on a bar crawl down North, or a story of a relationship that went down the tubes, But, if you are real lucky you could here tales from the decades when one would think that the pharmacy diner was built.

But, much to ones surprises the diner wasn’t built in the 1940s, the heyday of pharmacy counters, it was built in 1983 when James and Barbara Searles first turned the decaying Astor Theater into a pharmacy/diner but were still able to restore the a piece of the theater as well. Searles explains that the simple diner exists to support the efforts of the theater, and its efforts to support growing arts.

“We can’t do this with out its support,” Searles says when giving a tour of the surprisingly large building with its many studios.

The pharmacy has existed as part of this community for almost 25 years now and it’s easy for a customer to see how much the community supports its efforts by a general sample of the patrons there on a weekend morning.

There are regulars that slide into their normal table, their coffee cups immediately filled by a member of the wait staff. There are hipsters that sit drinking endless cups of coffee nursing away the hangover that they woke up with that morning. Families come in and wrestle with kids that want to scurry around and explore the old building.

The pharmacy diner looks like nothing special on the inside. It has four rows of booths that lead to a 12-seat U-shape counter that cups the pie display. The wait staff wears simple black polos. One can see the kitchen from any seat in the place.

It is simple and that is its charm. It seems to have never aged past the childhood that it never had back in the '50s. It’s an antique much like many of the items kept upstairs.

The menu is as classic as the establishment itself. One can order a meal from two eggs, toast and jelly to the southern fried chicken dinner. The two eggs and toast will cost one a mere $2.40, but to splurge on the Southern Fried Chicken you just have to pay $4.10 more at $6.50.

One of the best items on the menu is that endless cup of coffee that the hipsters nurse every Sunday morning. It costs $1.75, which would seem expensive if it weren’t filed up after almost every sip one takes.

There is something refreshing about diner coffee. It’s rich and flavorful, and comes without all the bells and whistles of all the coffee in the regular world.

Everywhere in the diner there is evidence of its support of the growing theater productions. Along one wall of the diner there are two old projects, one16mm and one 35mm. The seats of dining area are framed by stage-lights that hang from the ceiling.

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