Friday, 23 September 2011

• Nathan's

  To my grandparents, Romanian and Russian immigrants who settled in Brooklyn, and to my parents, growing up in Brooklyn, Nathan's could only refer to one thing, Nathan's Famous in Coney Island, where, after a day on the beach, they could get a Nathan's all-beef hot dog for just one nickel, the only place in the universe where you could get a Nathan's hot dog at any price.

   

  Today, when people think of Nathan's, if they think of Nathan's at all (other than during the annual Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest), Nathan's is just one more fast food choice in the food court at your local shopping mall.

  But to my friends and I, growing up on Long Island in the 1950s and 60s, there was another Nathan's, on Long Beach Road in Oceanside.  Opened in 1921, just a small fruit and vegetable stand, within a couple of years, it had added a hot dog grill and by 1929, in a building that covered the entire block, with a counter that extended more than 100 feet in length, The Roadside Rest was born, not a Nathan's at first, but rather an imitator.  The Roadside Rest was a big deal in the late 30s and early 40s, attracting the big bands, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton. 

  

  World War Two marked the end of the heyday of the Roadside Rest, but early in the 1950s, Murray Handwerker, son of Nathan Handwerker (yes, that Nathan, the Nathan behind Nathan's Famous) purchased the business.  Murray recognized what his father could not, that there was money to be made, there were hot dogs to be sold, to the families (like my own) who had moved from Brooklyn to the suburbs.  So Murray bought the Roadside Rest, and within a few years, his father saw the merit of the idea, buying out the business, making it officially, the second, and for many years, the only Nathan's Famous outside of Coney Island.

  

  Nathan's in Oceanside was not on the beach, but it was on the road to the beach, and it became the place to stop for a bite to eat on the way to or from Long Beach.  When we got our drivers' license, it became the place to stop for a bite, whether or not we were going to the beach.  We could hang out there for hours, no pressure to buy, plenty of tables, plenty of arcade games, a perfect destination for teenagers with more time than money.

  As I say, we could hang out at a table, without feeling the pressure to buy food, but of course we did.  And not just hot dogs.  Nathan's was rightly famous for their hot dogs and fries, but if you went to Nathan's, you knew it was also a great place for pizza, for ipswich fried clams, for knish, for corn on the cob, for frog's legs (yes, really, frog's legs).  But here's the thing.  Each item on the menu had its own line at the counter (and every cook was a specialist, turning out just one menu item).  So if you wanted, for example, a hot dog, a knish and a soda, first you waited on the hot dog line, then you went to the knish line, and finally to the soda line.  But, it didn't really happen that way, because no one went to Nathan's alone.  You went as a group.  Or you found your group when you got there.  So one person would get on the hot dog line, another on the clam line, a third on the corn on the cob line, and then make their way back to the table with a tray piled high with dogs, or clams, or corn.

  I moved away in 1970, but would stop in from time-to-time, over the next few years.  In 1976, the building was demolished.  As the song says, They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

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