When Good Food was Fast Food
Sunday, August 16th, 1998On Sunday mornings in the 1950s my Dad would take my brothers and me to the pony rides at a small track on a ridge above the Passaic River. It was a wonderful way to sample a bit of the cowboy world we watched on TV westerns. Young stable hands would help us mount and, when we were very little accompany us around the straw covered track.
Nearby was a wood frame café where we ate many happy dinners. Through the plate glass window along the front one could see a crowd of celebrants at the counter and over the roof, in neon letters vertically arranged on a tall thin strut, a sign stating simply, “RUTT’S HUT.”
One of North Jersey’s most cherished secrets was exposed recently when a food taster at the New York Times ventured to the garden state. There in the city of Clifton, home of Old Spice and Buddy Macy, the King of Comedy, the gourmet sampled delights of which Epicurus could only dream. (more…)