When interviewed by Mary Lasher of Chess Life in 1985 , owner Irv Cisski said , " So what if games @-@ people turn away business . They add flavor . Chess and Go are assets to a coffeehouse . " The Last Exit was the subject of a 1987 retrospective in The Seattle Times in which Cisski described his intent to " create a haven where students and the benign crazies " was welcome and where " everyone felt equal and there was no sacred cows " . It was later described by Seattle writer and journalist Knute Berger as