Old cars have adoring car shows. Defunct sports teams get memorialized with throwback jerseys. Obsolete products get re-marketed for their retro appeal. And old movies and songs never seem to go away.
But what about restaurants?
The restaurant industry has a famously high mortality rate (most independent, non-chain restaurants don’t make it to their first anniversary). Still, often because of their ephemeral nature, restaurants occupy a unique space in popular memory and in the history and personality of the cities they represent. They are totems of nostalgia and evoke strong memories of bygone eras.
To memorialize them properly, long-gone restaurants need writers like Santa Cruz’s Liz Pollock, who brings back many of the half-forgotten names of the local landscape in her new book The Lost Restaurants of Santa Cruz County.
Pollock herself is part of that glorious history. She’s lived in the area for 45 years and worked as the first female bartender at the fabled family restaurant Adolph’s in the 1980s. Since then, she has become an avid collector and archivist of Santa Cruz’s restaurant culture and has maintained an online bookstore called The Cook’s Bookcase (cooksbookcase.com) that specializes in books on cooking and wine.
“I am just the person to write this book,” she says, at a table by the window at Gilda’s on the Wharf, one of Santa Cruz’s best-known old-line family restaurants. At the table with her is a box filled with old menus and matchbooks from her collection that revive names that make for an incantation of the past for any Santa Cruz old-timer: the Ship Ahoy, Spivey’s Five Spot, Malio’s, the Tea Cup.
“I wanted to do a kind of Studs Terkel Working oral-history point of view,” she says, referring to Terkel’s classic 1974 book. “I sat down in people’s living rooms, was on the telephone for hours. I emailed, did some sleuthing, you name it.”
From 78 interviews of restaurant owners, managers, chefs, bartenders, line cooks, wait staff, and loyal customers, Pollock produced a portrait of 194 extinct restaurants in Santa Cruz County, from the landmark Davenport Cash Store to the Pronto Pup Drive-In in Watsonville, and all points in between.
Postwar Scene
As the 20th century progressed, many restaurants became emblematic of certain eras: burger joints and drive-ins in the 1950s, tiki themes in the ’60s, vegetarian places in the ’70s, sushi bars in the ’80s, etc.
Such was the story in Santa Cruz County, which gave Pollock a handy framework to write about defunct restaurants. Her story begins in the 1940s, at the height of World War II, when restaurateurs in Santa Cruz had to face food rationing due to shortages of staples, and government-mandated travel restrictions, which limited tourism. The government’s heavy hand also extended to price controls and even to wartime commandeering.
One of Santa Cruz’s signature sites at the time was the grand Casa del Rey Hotel on Beach Street, known for its ballroom and cocktail lounge Il Trocadero. In 1943, the U.S. Navy commissioned the hotel as a convalescent facility for wounded servicemen, more than 18,000 of whom recuperated there through the end of the war. The spot where Casa del Rey once stood is now the vast parking lot across the street from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The story of the postwar years in Santa Cruz specifically, and the country as a whole, was a vast throwing off of the limits and restrictions of the war. Car culture boomed, teenagers ruled the night, and new ideas in restaurants flourished. What followed was the age of the “carhop,” the name applied to waiters or waitresses that served customers sitting in their cars, usually in roller-skates and spiffy uniforms.
As Pollock relates in her book, Santa Cruz had at least two major drive-in places that catered to teens and families: The Cross Roads Drive-In, near where Depot Park is now, and Spivey’s 5 Spot on Ocean and Water streets, now the Chase Bank building.
“Everybody raved about Spivey’s,” Pollock says. “It was the place to be. When Pacific (Avenue) went both ways, people would cruise the drag, looking for girls or whatever. And they would just go back and forth (from Cross Roads to Spivey’s).”
The Cross Roads, with carhop service and a jukebox that played the hits through outside speakers, specialized in barbecue and milkshakes and, in the summer, stayed open until 3am. Spivey’s featured its trademark “broasted” chicken, cooked in a high-temperature pressure fryer to seal in the juices. In Watsonville, the go-to spot was the Pronto Pup on Main Street, famous for its corndogs.
On the cover of Pollock’s book is an image of one of the more beguiling local restaurants, the Saba Club and Caribbean Ballroom in the heart of Capitola Village. The Saba was inspired by San Francisco’s immortal Trader Vic’s, with ornate tiki and Polynesian trappings, and it featured an enormous dance floor. During its heyday—it lasted just a few years before it burned to the ground in 1957—Saba attracted some of the biggest names on jazz circuit, including Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald.
Catalyst for Change
In the 1960s, the University of California came to Santa Cruz and profoundly changed the town’s culture. The restaurants of the era reflected that change, none more dramatically than the Catalyst.
Today, Santa Cruzans know the Catalyst as the town’s most prominent live-music venue at 1011 Pacific Avenue. But when it opened in 1967, it was in a different spot (in the old St. George Hotel, roughly where Bookshop Santa Cruz exists today) and it had an entirely different orientation. As its name implied, the Catalyst was a café that was a kind of meeting place for students and faculty at the new UC campus. The Catalyst specialized in deli sandwiches served in an idiosyncratic, artsy interior. In her book, Pollock quotes one former Harbor High student saying, “We’d sit near the fountain—with the goldfish swimming inside—surrounded by lots of plants, order tea, and just hang out.”
The university’s arrival in Santa Cruz coincided with the natural foods revolution. At the center of that revolution locally was the Whole Earth Restaurant on the UCSC campus, which was opened to give students and faculty an on-campus alternative to cafeteria food. English-born master gardener Alan Chadwick was growing organic vegetables nearby and it began servicing the kitchens of the Whole Earth, creating a farm-to-table process that is common today, but then was pioneering. Pollock spent time with Paul Lee, the legendary UCSC professor who helped start the Whole Earth.
“That was really a national story,” Pollock says. “Stewart Brand, who published The Whole Earth Catalog, came to the inaugural party and gave a little speech, allowing them to use the words Whole Earth. He wanted to encourage people to get away from processed food and get back to the Earth.”
Lee also had a hand in a short-lived but notable chapter in Santa Cruz food history with the opening of the Wild Thyme Café in the old Cooper House on the Pacific Garden Mall. The Wild Thyme, which opened in 1974 and closed the following year, focused on the emerging gourmet aesthetic of the time, with entrees like shrimp crepes with dill and cream sauce, and desserts like chocolate custard mousse. Those affiliated with UCSC were thrilled to find that the restaurant maitre d’ was the university’s founding provost Page Smith.
Other local spots that reflected the growing preference for natural foods included Nature’s Harvest, on the bend in the road near Twin Lakes Beach, and the High Street Local, a near-campus place that put in its help-wanted newspaper ads: “Long hair hippie types desirable.”
“One of the significant things about the 1970s, for me,” Pollock says, “was the introduction of the credit card. Some people really rebelled against them. But they made it easier for tourists and made it so that some restaurants could capitalize on, ‘Hey, let’s live it up and get that fancier bottle of wine.’”
Lost Gems
Lost Restaurants of Santa Cruz County also remembers some restaurants that deserve a look back, though they might not be the first to come to mind for the restaurant-nostalgic. One such place is La Manzana in Watsonville.
La Manzana was the work of the late Manuel Santana, who was as much a classical artist and painter as a restaurateur. Santana had already successfully opened Manuel’s in Aptos and Jardines in San Juan Bautista (both of which are still open). La Manzana was conceived and designed by Santana and celebrated landscape architect Roy Rydell, the man who designed the Pacific Garden Mall. “The building inside and out was truly a work of art,” said Santana’s son Leonard Santana in the book.
All contemporary histories of Santa Cruz County devote a lot of space to the events of Oct. 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta Earthquake crippled both downtown Santa Cruz and Watsonville. Many restaurants were casualties of the earthquake, none more prominently than the businesses associated with the Cooper House, which was red-tagged and demolished shortly after the quake.
Many businesses downtown were displaced and set up in a series of pavilions. One of those housed the many downtown eateries, creating a makeshift food court atmosphere that many locals remember fondly despite the trying circumstances. The food pavilion stayed in business until 1992.
Pollock’s chapter on the earthquake throws a spotlight on one of Santa Cruz’s most celebrated restaurants, India Joze, under the direction of the brilliant fusion chef Jozseph Schulz, who called himself a “food evangelist.” India Joze was always more of a meeting place for the artistic class than just another restaurant. As Pollock says in her book, Schulz was one of the few chefs able to stay open in the days following the quake.
The Lost Restaurants of Santa Cruz County provides access to many side streets from the broad avenue of historical narrative. Pollock shows her obvious admiration to such restaurant owners as Ted Burke of the Shadowbrook, Bruce and Marcia McDougal of the Davenport Cash Store, and Cindy Lepore-Hart of the Mediterranean café Seychelles. It serves as a tribute to the tireless Stagnaro family, behind both Gilda’s and Malio’s, as well as her one-time employers at Adolph’s.
It tells the story of the Sticky Wicket, the Aptos-based watering hole that was not only a great jazz club but a hangout for the artistic crowd that included famed composer Lou Harrison and the founders of the Cabrillo Music Festival.
The old Santa Cruz Hotel, now the site of the Red Restaurant and the Red Room, is a landmark dating back to 1928. The Crown Room in the hotel, with its trademark red wallpaper, celebrated the Miss California Pageant, which took place in Santa Cruz for almost 40 years. The restaurant featured portraits of Miss California over the years, plus it had a glass case that housed the official Miss California crown.
Pollock also devotes space to the purveyors, wholesalers and distributors who supplied the restaurant business in Santa Cruz County, among them the Bargettos of the well-known Soquel winery. There’s even a nod to Pete’s Outflow Technicians who service the grease traps at various restaurants around the county.
The book’s index features a long list of names from Santa Cruz culinary history, their address and how long they operated, for those who still remember the infamous bar the Lost Weekend in Bonny Doon, Mother Brown’s Soul Food in the Circles on the West Side, the Delmarette Fountain as well as the Woolworth’s Luncheonette in downtown, the Colonial Inn at the juncture of Ocean Street and Highway 17 and its infamous “seafood-a-rama,” Zorba the Buddha in Seabright which was owned and operated by followers of Bhagwan Rajneesh, the Castle Dining Room right on the sand at Seabright Beach, the Donut Den in Watsonville, and the classic diner Bea’s Koffee Kup. They’re all included here.
But maybe more representative of the long-gone icons of the Santa Cruz restaurant scene was the Chinese restaurant the Tea Cup in the Flatiron building at the entrance to the Pacific Garden Mall at the Town Clock (a Jamba Juice is there now). The Tea Cup was upstairs, overlooking the five-way intersection at the heart of downtown. It was a magnet for many of Santa Cruz’s movers and shakers in the post-war years and was the hangout space of choice of the Boardwalk’s legendary publicist Skip Littlefield.
The Tea Cup’s heyday ended that fall day when the Loma Prieta quake happened. The building was tagged for demolition, but before it was brought down, signmaker and artist Steve Hosmer snuck in past the chain-link fences and “rescued” the iconic Tea Cup sign. After more than 30 years, Hosmer still has that sign, the last remaining token from one of the most famous of Santa Cruz’s lost restaurants.
Sounds like an important contribution to local history.
1. You didn’t include the Trout Farm in Zayante.
2. Gordon’s Chuck House in Scott’s Valley.
3. Acapulco restaurant In downtown Santa Cruz.
4. Tip Top Cafe on Mission St, in Santa Cruz.
5. Aragon’s Italian Restaurant on Main St in Soquel.
6. 2525 Main Street Restaurant in Soquel.
7. 2121 41st Avenue Restaurant in Capitola, CA where you
were surrounded by huge fish tanks.
8. Colleen’s Cafe on Seabright Avenue in Santa Cruz, across the street from Linda’s Seabreeze Cafe in Santa Cruz.
9. Tampico Restaurant on Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz.
10. The Edgewater Restaurant & bar on the Esplanade in Capitola.
11. Garbini’s Restaurant on Soquel Drive, near 41st Avenue.
Their are many others but I forgo ten their names.
Like the Italian Guy, who looked like Einstein. He was next door to Brady’s Yacht Club. Then, he moved to the corners of Soquel Avenue & Ocean Street.
There was another drive-in on the corner of Soquel & Ocean St, in Santa Cruz. It was there in the 60’s, the man who owned it had a son that graduated from Santa Cruz High School in 1967, I think.
New Riverside szechuan. Chef Tong.
What about Positively Front Street?
What about the union depot you didnt interview our family!!! We had the train shaped restaurant near the boardwalk!!! My grandpa owed it, it had the best clam chowder and chili, I should now my grandpa and mom one first place in both!!! And for the additional desert round my mom won first place on her cheesecake!!! We served San Francisco’s finest ice cream real cream churned!!! I was only kid when he closed up shop!! But I remember ever detail down to the beautiful stain glass windows and amazing cooks, chefs, and prep cooks, even the servers!!!guess you left us out!!! Our family has been their for over a 100 years too!!!!
I would love to see what Liz Pollock might have uncovered about L’Oustalou and The Ice Cream Bank. They were downtown on Locust Street, between Cedar and Pacific Garden Mall. And what about that high-end place on the second floor of what is now mostly an office building, in between the Galleria and the Trader Joe’s parking lot? Castanola’s! That is what is what it was called. Run by a member of the Santa Cruz City Council. I guess I am going to have to track down the book!
sadly left out Adolph’s Italian on Water, Malio’s on the wharf, Castagnola’s which someone else already made mention…some that are still in business and not mentioned…nice start, I see a 2nd edition in the future….
The place next door to Brady’s was Al Dente run by chef Lucio Fanni (moved from Capitola Village). He closed it and opened Caffe Lucio at Soquel and Ocean. He died in 2018.
There was a place where Johnny’s at the Harbor is now. Rosa’s Rotisserie I think. They had a big Iguana exhibit you could stare at while you stood in line waiting to get your food. They had a killer fresh salsa bar. Really cheap and great views. I still remember the oaxacan platter.
Hi Liz,
What a great project and great that it ended up in a book authored by you. How exciting. If you plan on doing a part II or you are still collecting restaurant items, let me know. Part of my growing up years was being in my parent’s restaurant, Hugo’s Armenian Restaurant and Deli. We had live middle eastern music and my dad and I would teach Armenian folk dancing to our customers. We also had belly dancers and my parents were on the cover of the Good Times during the 70’s. We were located where La Cabana now exists on Mission Street in the old Linda Vista shopping center.
Congratulations on the book! I will definitely be grabbing a copy.
Is the impossible restaurant in the book? They were a pizza place over on Soquel – the BEST pizza, ever!
In the mid 80’s my husband worked at Santa Cruz Toyota and I worked in Capitola. We would meet by his work onWed for the best roast beef sandwiches ever! I think it was box car Deli. Then are other lunch favorite was the Wagon Wheel best steak sandwiches! Memories………..
What was the name of the restaurant on natural bridges dr that burned down in the early to mid 1970’s?
My wife and I had our wedding dinner July 20, 1968. The restaurant was also know for NY Mafia members, Facelli’s.
Whatever happened to the deli-type eatery Noah’s Ark in Capitola Village? The finest “dining out” we were able to afford in the autumn of ‘72 dependably awaited us at Noah’s counter. We could enjoy a slow and lazy 360 twirl on those classic, round, lunch-counter seats while waiting, watching the sidewalk pedestrians through the huge picture window. Then Noah laid out the absolute best bagel plate, laden with fluffy, whipped cream cheese, ripe tomato and avocado slices topping the lot—ooh-la! Served alongside his freshly squeezed o.j., Richard and I would be properly fed any day we lunched at the Noah’s Ark counter. Anyone recall that experience, as well, or know whatever became of Noah or his ark-eatery?
They served the most wonderful cheesecake with a crust that was to die for. All of the food was good. When I was there it was more of a full service restaurant than a deli. Circa 1979/80
What about Right Livelihood Natural Pizza?
Hello, does anyone remember a small cafe and creamery on Soquel Ave. in the early 1950’s ? My mom and dad owned it for a year or two. I was 5 or 6 at the time. Loved making ice cream with my dad!
I remember it well. Many of us kids from Branciforte Junior high ( 1956 to 1958) wouuld go there after school and play the jukebox. They would let us dance. Was it called ” Whitehouse Creamery?” Maybe in the block just up from Shoppers Corner. Fun memories.
It was the Whitehouse Creamery. The kids from Branciforte Junior High went there after school to play the juke box. They would let us dance. A fine memory.
I remember a little hole in the wall on the Santa Cruz Wharf. Does anyone remember a little place called Frenchies that served hot dogs and fries? I remember the small counter had a huge cash register. I hope this is not my imagination! But I do remember such a place. Not really a restaurant where you could sit. We sat in the parking lot and ate our delicious food.
How about The GrapeSteak?
41st Ave, across from Target.
Best steaks and salad bar around!
Oh,, those baked beans and potatoes!
Nice bar, and great people.
Just out of High School, they gave me my first job.
Sadly, the earthquake ended it.
It’s wasn’t across the street from Target. That store is in the mall. Kmart and Safeway were across the street.
I’m so happy to find your site. My name is Kathleen Rose Blann.. Maiden Name is KATHLEEN ROSE GARBINI.. My Grandparents and Mom and Dad. Mary and John R. Garbini built Garbini’s Inn in Early 50’s Please contact me.. Sincerely Kathleen Blann “GARBINI” ThankYou …!!
Hopefully the book includes Chef Tong’s Szechuan in Santa Cruz and Suzanne’s By The Sea in Capitola. My first taste of Szechuan Chinese food had me hooked for life. Suzanne’s had an unusual menu of Northern Spanish cuisine that was incredible.
Two fabulous restaurants!! I remember the lines out the door to sit on wooden picnic benches at Chef Tong’s. Suzanne’s paella…..
Laurie, I used to work at both those restaurants!! Chef Francis Tong was wonderful and does anyone know whatever happened to Phil and Shirley, the owners of Suzanne by the Sea in Capitola?? I cooked, washed dishes, waited tables, made their cheesecakes, loved Suzanne’s! Remember the after hours there? Miss those days!
Who remembers the Solarium and Beckman’s Hofbrau?
Love this site!! 1970s-80s McDharma’s on East Cliff Dr. The Cheese Factory in the same area, related to the old cheese factory in Pleasanton that dated back to the 1950s or earlier. Bubble Cafe on the Pacific Garden Mall. Amalgamation on SE corner of Water and Ocean. The Farm House in Aptos
Some other mid to late 70s hopefuls, while I await my copy of the book…Pearl Alley Bistro on the mall; McDharma’s on East Cliff Dr.–way ahead of it’s time and delicious. Nearby, The Cheese Factory, with connections the historic Cheese Factory in Pleasanton. Casablanca at the Boardwalk, The Farmhouse near Cabrillo College. integral Yoga organic market on the lower mall, the list goes on!
My husband lived in Santa Cruz before we met and owned the local Kawasaki dealership. He also owned a small restaurant called the Randy Tar. We have a ceramic plaque from the restaurant and a copy of the menu. But I can find no information on it, wondering if it actually existed.
Randy Tar was a thing, yes. Just to the right of the PG&E yard on 7th Ave.
I worked ant PG&E starting ‘75 and ate at the Tar after work a number of times. Great burgers is all I recall..and beer! It was small but fit right in with the nearby yacht harbor giving the “Randy Tar” name proper appropriate billing ??
Loved the Tar. Ate there numerous times and fondly recall the plate sized quesadillas stuffed with more cheese than I’d thought possible.
Does anyone remember the name of the restaurant that was next door to the Crepe Place when it was on N. Pacific? It might have been United something?
The Good Fruit Company?
Right livelihood pizza?
What was the name of the Little Mexican cafe in 1959-1961 on Riverside where the Boardwalk parking lot is now? Other businesses along that strip were Ruth’s candy store and the Beachcomber Bar on the corner and a souvnier shop ( name???). I think the restaurant was next to Swan Court, now demolished.
Tampico kitchen, that is where it started
Great memories all around…
We played Pasatiempo in 2000 when we came out from CT on a Golfing trek to also hit Pebble Beach. We ate at the Lido Cafe ( or possibly Cafe Lido ) then because we play Lido Golf Club in NY.
Recently, we tried to find it via Google Maps but were unsuccessful with searches or by looking for the building via street-view…
Does anyone have a street or an address or any other info about the Cafe…food was great and we had a good time…THanks!
How about the great restaurants on the Boardwalk. I recall Art’s (owned by Art Malquel) and Marini’s (owned by Vic Marini) Marini also had the taffy pull on the Boardwalk.
Boy do I miss the Old Santa Cruz Hotel. They served Italian family style dinners. It was very easy to get stuffed before the entree ever even came.
The served baskets of bread, lettuce salads, a nice anti-pasto plate, a huge tureen of minestrone, a little plate of spaghetti or ravioli and THEN the entree would come. I usually died and went to heaven with the abalone steak.
Oh well. It’s history now. Grrr!
I remember the Solarium and when it became Irving’s Rolling Thunder Slightly Kosher Deli. The best bagels and lox and blintzes! And here’s a real brain tickler – Goof’s Cafe on Water Street by the dry cleaner… I think it was only open for a few months. Terrible service, but open late at night and a true hippie joint. No wonder they went bust!
Does anyone remember the whipped cream cake from Spivey’s restaurant bakery?
I do. Used to work there while I was attending Cabrillo later ’60s.
Hi Liz do you have any info on my family’s restaurant Driv n eat corner of ocean and Soquel built in the 50s my name is Joe Hickenbottom
What a treasure trove trove!!
This is just such a fabulous memory walk. We moved to SC in January 1970 and I remember most of these places. OMG!
Liz Pollock – we need a 2nd and 3rd edition, please!!!!
I fondly remember Tapu’s Breakfast Hut on Soquel. The owner was a real hoot, and the omelets were killer.
First place I waited tables ! We had to wash the dishes too ! Tapu dated my mom ! Diane great memories!!
The Clock Bistro – awesome & early gourmet/Chez Panisse type place located across the street from town clock & there was a sundial on the beautiful patio as I recall from one visit in 1982 when I was 13 years old.
What was the little Mexican place called that served Flatland Tacos and enchiladas?
Tortilla Flats. Started on Mission St. and two different locations in Soquel Village.
The little Mexican place across the street from the main Boardwalk entrance that made the HUGE burritos, WAY before the taquerias were on every corner… I think El Paisano? Mmmm AND the little place down by the clock tower that served Rancho Burgers and chili Mac? I used to eat there with my grand parents, my grandpa worked next door at Carroll Electric. There also used to be a roast beef “hut” in Soquel village that became Aragonas original location, and is now Sawadee, can’t remember the name?!?! And my family LOVED Rancho Maria’s and Charles Dickens out in Aptos. What s fun project, I will definitely look to purchase a copy to walk down memory lane.
I was a weekebd waitress at Bea’s Koffee Kip from 1977-1980. Served many a fluffy omelette and poured many a coffee in those fat ceramic mugs. (Inside secret to fluffy omelettes? Eggs mixed in designated milkshake machine!)
I was just looking for a picture of Bea’s Koffee Kup & found this gem. I look forward seeing the book!
Two place I remember well from my days at UCSC, are Tip Top Cafe on Mission st, and Eskimo Nell’s on Mission St. Tip Top Cafe had amazing fluffy omelette’s that I have yet to encounter anywhere else since. They also had a pass through door to the bar next door so you could get a Bloody Mary to help with your hangover or all nighter of cramming for finals. Eskimo Nell’s was a tiny sandwich place with other organic items that you would find on a Santa Cruz menu. I can’t recall if they had a liquor license or not, but was one of many student hangouts in the later 70’s. Late night treat was Ferrell’s Donuts at 2am when the fresh Jelly Donuts rolled out. This was when they were in a strip mall hole in the wall building on Mission, a bit more toward town than their current location. Still searching for a super fluffy omelette place.
I lived in Santa Cruz briefly in the late 70’s and recall a Chinese restaurant downtown that only had 2 long tables and always a line out the door. You sat where a space opened up and when you were done you got shooed out. Anyone remember that ?
Chef Tong’s
I cooked at Gildas before it was Gildas. I also cooked at Downtowner , The Cookbook ( Aptos ) Golden West Pancakes & a baker at The Bubble Bakery on the mall & Blue Bird Bakery in Boulder Creek.
It would have been interesting to see something about the Sticky Wicket which was sort of a hippy hangout in Scotts Valley back in the seventies
Sticky Wicket was in Aptos on Mar Vista, a bohemian hang out and that was the early 1960s
My mom worked at the Tea Cup in the early 60’s. She met my eventual father as he would come in regularly as a customer. My mom wasn’t very complimentary of her boss, and my dad said he was there to “protect” her. After getting married, they had me in 1964, and operated a restaurant called Chatterbox Cafe. It was a red/white diner at, I believe, 2027 N Pacific in the Arrow Beauty Bar space. Gotta dig deep and find those photos.
Anybody remember a placec called Smorgees around ocean street in 70’s
I bet it was Perry Boys Smorgy, $1.25 lunch, $1.95 dinner
I do! I was just a kid, but I loved Perry Boys Smorgy. We’d stop in on our way to the boardwalk. I vaguely remember a ramp that took you down to the dining room
Anyone remember an Italian Restaurant on Front street 1562 or some number of the address Front STreet the year was 1975. I was married that day June 7,1975. My wife of now 49 years ago ate our first meal as husband and wife. I am sure the building is gone but was a cute little bistro style place. Back then
Thank you for the walk down memory lane.
Does anyone remember a short lived but wonderful cafe called “Doctor Bucks Garden of Eaten? Great food!