About
the Building
Located at 2271 Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley,
the acclaimed 1925 French provincial building has
a brick and stone front, replete with gargoyles,
cobblestone courtyard and a tooting metal piper atop the 40-foot tall chimney.
The building was designed by famed Bay Area architect W. F. Yelland and underwent
a complete seismic retrofit in 1998. This is the first time, since Tupper and
Reed, that the building has been occupied by a single tenant.
In the 1982, the building was listed on the National
Register of Historic Places, the nation's official
list of cultural resources worthy of preservation
and federal protection.
Extensive interior renovations began in March 1999.
New proprietors Martin and Mary Connolly sought the
services of Emeryville-based architectural firm Somonsky
Pometta to recreate a plan that would be in keeping
with the building's original design. Their team,
led by Gary Somonsky and John Clark, researched building
records and photo archives as a part of their process.
About the Restaurant
A true Irish Restaurant in
spirit and decor, Beckett's Restaurant features
a wide-ranging menu with traditional Irish favorites, classic American cuisine
and special dishes created by Chef Larry Doyle.
The dining area is split into two levels. Downstairs
there is our country cottage area with a brick
fireplace, wooden beams and brick-a-brack making
you feel as if you stepped back in time. This is
balanced with a row of high top tables, great for
snacking on items from our appetizer menu, enjoying
a pint and watching the goings on at our main bar.
Upstairs is a more formal setting for dining but
still it retains that comfortable charm that you
felt as you walked in. With tables along the upstairs
rail giving the opportunity to watch for that late
guest, a first date or just plain old people watching.
On Beckett....
Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906-1989) was the Irish playwright, novelist, and
Everyman whose comedy Waiting For Godot is the single most performed theater
work of the last fifty years. His plays and books were stripped-down and bleakly
funny black comedies about the nature of being human, and the hopeless outlook
of their characters were a direct allusion to his despair about life.
Not that the plays aren't funny; they are very
funny. But Beckett's humor was of the "gallows" kind,
and never lost that very Dublinesque quality. Although
his plays were usually called "absurdist" or
minimalist, but they defy all categorization. An
intensely private and modest man, Beckett usually
refused to explain his plays to the world and tried
to avoid the press and his legions of followers.
Hugely embarrassed when he won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1969, Beckett fled to a remote
part of North Africa to avoid the journalists.
When they tracked him down, he posed for a photo,
but only on condition he would not be interviewed. "It's
alright, I understand," he said to one apologetic
cameraman, his only comment on the honor of winning
the Nobel.
Beckett's famous resistance to publicity and unwillingness
to meet public life only fuelled public fascination.
It resulted in his becoming even more of a literary
legend. He wrote only in French after 1947, translating
his works later himself. |
