"ALICE'S RESTAURANT" arlo guthrie

'HAVE A GREAT LAST WEEKEND OF THE SUMMER"

Lets me take you back to the food  cuisine of a young people  growing up in the early 60's in the metropolis of Painesville. Remember this was a time before McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Arbys and Wendy's.

Just where did these young people of that era eat?

First off let's start off with Painesville's generic McDonalds 'Devines' which later became Charlie's and then it became the Pizza Parlor. I still remember the peaked red-orange roof and white ceramic sides, no sit down inside but a 15 cent hamburger 19 cent fries as well a 25 cent shake they never called them milkshakes back then there was no milk in them.

Sometimes we would wander up to Islay's for a 'real' milk shake. Still remember the looks on the waitresses faces as this traveling bunch of comrade's strolled into the Newberry's or Kresge's lunch counter's as we collected our nickel's dines and quarter's to buy a platter, everything was a platter back then. We were also known as not the greatest tippers in town?

Once I had the opportunity to escort a young lady and her mother downtown. Her mother took us to eat lunch at Carlisle's!  Carlisles's downstair's has food? none of my Little League teammates believed me. Sorry, we never had the opportunity to create havoc with those waitresses.

Downtown next to the Lake Theater Angela's Pizza. What pizza?  I can go home and eat pizza. And when Mrs. Stanzi made pizza it was like a gift from the heavens.

Chicken in Painesville? There was a corner store at Prospect and N.State St. called Jefferies. One day they closed the store and soon reopened it as Jefferies Broaster Chicken. They sold a ton of chicken. The smell of chicken alone as you sat in Mass at St. Mary's across the street.. talk about a captive audience. I sometimes wondered if Father got a cut?

We even had our own  special soft serve ice cream 'Frizzell's Freeze' with three local locations Madison Ave. Liberty and Richmond St. now the rest of the story.. After high school I went to work for Lockie-Lee Dairy that made the special 6% ice cream mix. Once while loading my truck one day I was short 20 gallons of Frizzell's Freeze the plant manager came out with two Frizzell's Freeze labels and marked them. I asked him can you do that? Hell Angelo, it's all Frizzell's Freeze. Well I asked what do they get extra?  They get to pay extra was the answer.

Nightlife? Many nights in the summer we would have sleep outs. Where we ran through the neighborhood terrorizing no one but convinced the police were out to get us. Now what was the point of filling a bag with dog poop and setting it on fire and ringing the door bell? Far better than being the first one to go to sleep. After a little fun and games we headed to the Avenue and Jerry & Bert's for a nightcap of cherry coke, that's livin'! The waitresses were also so glad to see us arrive. Many of us were in Jr. High before we grasped the concept of a tip.  Even on the occasion my father took me to Kenny Kings that was if the colonel's chicken HAD to be on sale. He'd asked me if I liked coming here? Sure I always find some change on the table, my first lesson in tipping!

Now your 16 had a license and could wander out to Manner's for a Big Boy and no more waitress now you had carhops.

You know growing up here had a lot of pluses. I'm sure I forgotten some Studio Inn and Lutz's Inn were off -limits to us.