Berger's Restaurant — A Far Rockaway Tradition
By Stevie S. Stevens
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Berger's Restaurant - located at 1913
Mott Avenue, Far Rockaway -According to tax records, by the year
1931, Berger's was located in this building on Mott Avenue. Although
the restaurant was at this spot when I first "discovered"
it (1952) - the building itself had undergone some major changes
- both of the upper apartment levels had been removed. I am not
sure why or when this was done. My guess is that the upper levels
were removed before the war - with the housing shortage that followed,
certainly no landlord would have eliminated available living units.
My guess as to why the housing units were demolished is that the
wooden structure probably needed a lot of updating and was probably
having difficulty meeting code requirements so the owner probably
felt it was more profitable in the long run to eliminate the apartments
and just continue to rent out the store fronts below. After the
overhead apartments were removed, the restaurant purchased a new
sign which was placed over the main entrance until the store was
sold to another operator in the late 1960s. I don't remember the
canopy but I am told it lasted well into the late 1940s. |
Berger's DeLuxe Delicatessen & Restaurant was just about as close as you could get to a quality or premier dining establishment in the Rockaways back in the mid 1950s. Of course the larger Weiss's Restaurant located on Cross Bay Boulevard in Broad Channel was more well known - occupying a larger location, it was closer to the more populated city. Weiss was built on the "order" of the popular "Road-Side Rest" - located in Oceanside (Nassau County)- an establishment enjoying a fine reputation for inexpensive "fast" food and neighborhood social dining. For decades, the "Road-Side Rest" (on the east side of Long Beach Road) served to remind transplanted former city dwellers of happier days on Surf Avenue in Brooklyn — and shortly after WWII, "Nathan's Famous" acquired the place and had it rechristened.
Of course there were other popular family food-fairs in the small village of Far Rockaway - other places in which to dine back in the year 1950. The Central Delicatessen located on the west side of Central Avenue was extremely active - but even though this establishment did offer a limited number of interior tables and chairs, the Central Deli was considered to be more on the order of "take-out." There were two Chinese restaurants in town: The Palace was on the second level of the Healy Building (on the west side of Central Avenue); the China House was situated in a small grouping of storefronts on the west side of Beach Channel Drive and Mott Avenue. The State Diner was on the southeast corner of Mott Avenue and Beach Channel Drive. At that time, there were no pizza shops within the small commercial shopping district of Far Rockaway. Also note, we are specifically not including three lunch counters which were available at the time: F. W. Woolworths, W. T. Grant & Co., and Whelan's Drugs - nor are we mentioning several popular luncheonettes which were in business at the time. Of course, there were many small and smaller restaurants (less well known) throughout the peninsula at the middle of the century.
When Marty Nislick,webmaster of the rockawaymemories
website, first approached me and asked me if I would write an article
about the old Berger's Restaurant for his website, my first reaction was
to tell him he was asking the wrong guy! I am not, nor have I ever been
a food critic. I wouldn't know gourmet from garbage. However, Marty assured
me that what he wanted from me was for me to share some of my experiences
and to relate some of my memories; he said he was not seeking my evaluation
of the cuisine- after all, the restaurant has been closed for over fifty
years. I accepted this as the assignment and will happily leave the evaluation
of the menu to others more qualified than I to render kitchen evaluations.
I had only been residing in Far Rockaway for a few months when I received an invitation to my mother's 42nd birthday party. Mom had secured a local job and one of her co-workers had called our home and invited my dad and me to attend the gala event. At the time, my father was employed by a major firm in Brooklyn so he was unavailable that particular afternoon, but it was during the summer (August) so I was "off school" and I said I would be delighted to go.
We were living in an apartment house (WaveCrest Gardens on Beach 20th Street) at the time so the directions were quite simple: I was to walk north on Central Avenue until I reached Mott Avenue (look for the Cushman's Bakery on the corner)- then turn right and look for the Berger's sign at the front of the building. This trek was expected to take me about twenty minutes (I was only ten). Today, at age sixty plus, that same walk would probably exhaust me - if not kill me.
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I remember dressing (over dressing} in a suit (sans tie) and taking that "easy" stroll on that lovely summer day back in 1952. I entered Berger's Restaurant for the very first time that August 26th - the front door was at the right side- there was a small glass entrance vestibule - then a long "sit-down" counter on the right side, the glass-faced (cold-cut) display cases were on the left. About half way back, there were a series of tables and chairs (on the left side) and one long table (with a booth-back) on the right - facing those tables at the left. At the rear of the store was the kitchen - with two toilet rooms, one on each side. My mom's event was being held in what they referred to as "the annex" - a doorway on the left side near the rear of the store gave entrance to a large separate party room. This party room was actually the rear portion of the store front at the east side of the restaurant - by 1950, Berger's had actually rented two stores: the main establishment at 1913 Mott Avenue and an "empty-looking" store at 1911 Mott. I remember the walls of the annex being painted dark blue and I also remember the lighting as being extremely poor.