The Sunday Memory Drawer - End of an Era

Don't worry.  This whole Sunday piece is not going to be about the big Twinkie commotion from last week.  We've heard more than enough about that.  Facebook was a frenzy of gags, most notably by frequent comic posters as Joan Rivers, Albert Brooks, and Martin Short.  Truth be told, I was much more partial to Drake's Cakes when it came to getting my after-school snack from Charlie's Delicatessen on First Street in Mount Vernon, New York.

But this end of an era is about food.  And the end of a long standing dining tradition for me that goes all the way back to my very first job as an advertising assistant for that dumb ass Tom Carvel and his ice cream empire in Yonkers.

Good friends will know my love for Carlo's Italian Restaurant on Tuckahoe Road in Yonkers.  It's been there in the same spot for years.  Hell, who doesn't have a favorite Italian eating place in their past?  After all, unless you're really Italian, you can't make that stuff at home.  And, in my life, there have been several such eateries down through the years.

I remember my folks and their love for Bruno's Restaurant.  It was just south of the Yonkers Raceway.  A white rectancular building that looked from the outside like an insurance office.  But, inside, you found the old waiters in the short red vests and the cocktails ready to be mixed as soon as you walked in.  For a long while, my parents and I went there every Sunday afternoon for dinner.  And, at the immediate ready was a big tall glass of beer for my father and a Tom Collins for my mother.  Me?  It was a Coke.  But, the best part of this weekly excursion for me would be the appetizer.  A shrimp cocktail with the silver dish embedded in ice shavings.  Adult food which I just adored.  Inhaling the shrimp and hot sauce.  Then dipping the little crackers to sop up whatever sauce was left.

After the Bruno-mania died down, my folks' new Italian haunt was Sorrento's on White Plains Road and 232nd Street in the Bronx.  This became the place for them to go for the next five years.  Underneath the elevated tracks of the Number 2 IRT line, you'd be chowing down on the best pizza in the world with a soundtrack of clickity-clack-clickity-clack-clickity-clack.  Besides the good food, I loved the trip to Sorrento's because, while my mother was having her post-meal coffee and cigarette, I got to run down to the corner where a large toy store was situated.  I had enjoyed a good meal and maybe was even going to get to go home with the newest Colorforms set.

Flash forward to college and new traditions of fine Italian cuisine would be initiated by my chums at Serenata's on Webster Avenue in the Bronx.  A hole-in-the-wall joint where we adopted a steadfast rule for the three or so times a week we would go there for lunch.

"You can't have the bread if you've ordered a hero."

You had to be there to get the humor.  Or, given the way we were assholes in college, maybe you didn't.

Once I was a full-fledged adult, I would soon adopt my own life long Italian restaurant tradition.  At the aforementioned Carlo's.  And it started so innocently. 

I was working for Carvel and our advertising offices were housed in the dumpy Carvel Inn, a tax write-off of a hotel which was probably best remembered for one night stands with some skank you met in the disco up the road.  That, by the way, is not a first-hand experience for yours truly.   We worked downstairs and my office mate, Ellie, turned to me around noon time.

"Let's try that Carlo's for lunch."

Okay, it was close enough.  This was back in the days of punching clocks and being mindful of your sixty minutes only for lunch.  If you were not back to your desk in an hour, the rumor was that Tom Carvel himself would have you dipped in piping hot Brown Bonnet sauce.  So, to go out to a leisurely lunch required time and precision not seen since the Allied Forces landed on Normandy in 1944.

Well, we did venture to Carlo's and it was a complete dump.  Booths and tables that had seen better days, likely during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.  Dirty counters.  Leather cushions that was so cut up that they might have been used as props in a local high school production of "West Side Story."

But the pizza was glorious.  Perhaps the best I have ever had.

Ellie and I began the tradition of going there every Friday, threats of immersion into hot fudge sauce be damned.  The only person that seemed to work in the place (other than those in the kitchen) was this waitress with hair piled up in a Marge Simpson-like coiff.  Back then, she told us this was a long time family business and she was one of the owners.

Eventually, I left Carvel and headed off into other career directions.   After a year or so, I discovered that I missed Carlo's and headed back one Saturday night with my best friend from high school, Danny.  This would be the first of a thousand or so such visitations.  In the interim, things had changed.  A make-over had been engineered.  Gone was the decor of the 40s.  Insert wood paneling and tables of....the 80s.

We didn't care.  The food was terrific.  And the line was out the door on a Saturday night.   There was no waiting area in the restaurant.  So, regardless of the elements outside, it was commonplace to see folks milling around Tuckahoe Road waiting for their turn.  In the rain.  In the snow.  In the humidity.  In the deep freeze.  No price was too high for great Italian food.

And, for years, Danny and I were among the throng.  Soon, I would be sharing this culinary find with any friend I could drag along.  I took my father there for Father's Day.  I took my mother there for Mother's Day.  If I was dining out in Westchester, you'd likely find me at Carlo's.

I noticed that the big-haired waitress/owner was gone.  The guy running the place was this hulky bald-headed guy that looked like a Batman villain.  His name was Pete.  He, too, boasted that he was the owner.  The husband of the waitress?  We never figured that out definitively.  Meanwhile, he seemed to have more daughters than the Lennon Sisters and they all worked at the place.  Whatever the case, Carlo's was still a family production.

Pete was essentially the maitre d' and ran the seating in "Seinfeld Soup Nazi" style.

"You two go to that table over there.  You three?  Over on the left.  You!  Sit there."

He was just a little scary.   But it was the price you paid for delicious lasagna.

On one Saturday night, the wait list was particularly long.  I think Danny and I were headed to the movies, so we opted to leave because of our timing.  No big deal.

Until the very next time we went back to Carlo's.  Pete had noticed.

"You two walked out on me!!!"

Ummm.

"Don't do that again!"

Er........

We never did walk out again.

Regardless of what coast I live on, Carlo's remained a regular stop for me.  And, over time, I never deviated from one special dish.

Sausage and peppers with roasted potatoes on the side.

Exactly the way I liked it.   With very little gravy.   Sausage, peppers, onions, and some pieces of tomato.  Perfect.  And, since the portions were so large, I always took half of it home for the next day.  This, combined with a house salad with Pete's secret dressing, was my favorite meal to have anywhere.

Years and years and years zoomed by.  Everything at Carlo's remained an amazing constant.  

Until early this year.

We had noticed that Pete started to move slowly.  And then we didn't see him much.  The Saturday night hordes were still there.  But the legendary owner was not.  When we asked, we were told he only stopped by now on Sundays.  Supposedly, he was still the owner.

Meanwhile, we noticed other changes.  All the family employees had disappeared.  The wait staff now appeared to be an eclectic bunch of kids working their way through college or community service programs.  While the crowd still stood outside waiting to be seated, the real endurance test started to be getting a waitress' attention once you were at a table.

Er, miss....

Nothing.

Orders were mixed up.  Diners were ignored for long periods of time.  While the food was still good, the actual process of dining at Carlo's had turned into an obstacle course.

Yellow flags started to wave before me.

And, then, two visits ago in September, it all completely fell apart.

We ordered the pre-dinner salad as usual.  It tasted completely different.  And I noticed big chunks of blue cheese throughout.  Note to all: I despise blue cheese.

I flagged the waitress and, fifteen minutes later, she came by.  Since when do you put blue cheese in your house salad?

"We always have."

Okay, I have almost thirty years of my dining business invested in this place.  You have never put blue cheese in your salads.

"We always have."

It was no use going into a protracted Abbott and Costello routine with this girl who was probably failing Basic Algebra at Roosevelt High School across the street.  And the evening became even more unthinkable.  My sausage and peppers arrived.

Er, what is that?

There was sausage, indeed.  And peppers, too.  Covered in some brown gravy.

I tasted it and was completely repulsed.   It was pot roast gravy.  

Er, miss...

Another waitress sauntered over eventually.  I asked her when they started to put mashed potato gravy on sausage and peppers.

"That's the way we always have done it."

Umm, no.  I asked her to go and question the cook.   Ten minutes later, she returned.

"The kitchen says that's the way we always have done sausage and peppers."

And what un-parallel universe had I fallen into?   That night, I took none of the dish home for leftovers.  I barely touched what was on my plate.

But, old and pleasant habits are tough to replace.  On my last trip to New York, I tried again.  This time, there was a larger-than-usual crowd hanging about outside.  What happened, I wondered.  Had there been a fire?  One would-be patron gave me the lowdown.

"We've been waiting for 45 minutes."

I peeked inside.  There was utter chaos.  And I noticed one waitress walking by with a plate full of sausage and peppers.

Brown gravy.

I was done.  And, sadly, like all great TV shows and baseball player careers and Twinkies, everything must come to an end.

Where ever Pete is, I hoped he noticed that we had walked out on him.  Likely for the last time.

Dinner last night:  Steak sandwich at the Arclight.