The Radical Rye is at the corner of State Street. Where Henry and Johnson cut across it, State Street comes together in a collision of a city street and a student boulevard. The six lanes make it a curious place where a pile of pedestrians, plenty of buses and opposing forces of Madison's persona connect. At the Rye's corner, the downtown and the campus find a line in the concrete that divides the two.
The Radical Rye stands as an anchor for the students on the east side of Johnson Street, with Nick's and Noodles nearby. Depending on the night, the Orpheum Theatre will be there to complement it, offering a good counterpart to the Rye for any undergrad looking for dinner and a show. Like Madison Masala, the Rye's neighbor at its back, the eatery offers a decent meal at State Street's nucleus.
And, like Masala, The Radical Rye is getting the boot in the coming days. This has been inevitable every since Jerry Frautschi ponied up $100 million for an arts district. Now, as March winds itself away, The Radical Rye is prepared to become just another Madison footnote. In recent years, its position next to the expanding Overture Center conflicted with that encroaching neighbor.
In 2000, the Overture purchased the business of The Radical Rye itself because the Madison Arts Center already owned the building it was in.
Current owner Karl Armstrong then took over the business from Greg Frank. It is going to be missed, along with its hot sandwiches. At the Rye you could order a turkey reuben with bacon and not get any sarcasm in return.
You could get a monstrous pickle, the sort that requires two hands and a block-and-tackle system to handle. On top of that, you could fill out your order with both Sprecher's Ravin' Red and Reed's Original Ginger Brew.
And yes, The Radical Rye had its share of flaws. The chicken noodle soup seemed to originate with titanic chickens and a manic pepper shaker. Orders occasionally found their way into the wrong stomachs. It was a little too cramped and seemed to have always had somebody yelling \Bill. There's a BLT for B-I-L-L.""
This won't be a eulogy for a pile of cracked bricks and splintered wood. The Rye will instead pass into shining steel and a soaring staircase with plenty of glass for some upper-crust culture. It will disappear like Miller's Eats and Treats and like Dotty's did, at least for a little while.
Downtown has made an advance into the space that the campus used to claim on State Street. For some it seems like a shove, for others a gentle tap in the way of change. The Radical Rye will pass into memory and that's allowable. What isn't admissible is for the Overture Center and the City of Madison not to provide the same close-quarter camaraderie that the Rye's absence takes from us.
blschultz@hotmail.com.
