Dial Tone Lounge

 

 

 

A quick half mile ride, just up the street and not even around the corner. I would

leave work and always had the choice. Left or right. Usually this was a sixty forty

proposition. Friday and Saturday nights were quick stops.

I was the assistant manager of a twenty four hour coffee shop. This was one very busy place. Positioned at an exit ramp on Route I-84 in Plainville, this place was a mecca for truckers and we would typically get slammed by bus traffic. The ice cream counter was a big money maker. We must have had thirty or forty different flavors and even specials for the changing seasons. We made splits, floats, sundaes, hot fudge,

butterscotch and a thousand others. Hand packed quarts, cones, double, triple.

We sold plastic cows that doubled as creamers, Penn Dutch taffies and candy and even replicas of signs used on the barns thought to bring protection and ward off evil spirits. We also sold the Abigail and of course the Blonde Abigail.

I must have been twenty one at this time. Fran was my boss and had been a golden boy with this chain. This was the busiest store and the numbers were staggering.

Fran had a descriptive quality of not quite homely. He was tall, six two, thin as a rail and pretty soft spoken. He had an intuitive quality that he used exceptionally well to his benefit. He could get waitress’ to do double shifts when no one else would even

get the time of day. Same with busboys and I admit, myself.

Fran had developed a way to make cones and sundaes appear huge, while actually, pretty much screwing the customer. He would roll the scoop into a giant ball of ice cream but was completely empty inside. You had to make sure you never squashed it down. He made huge bonuses from all the savings.

Busses would pull off the highway, usually between four and seven pm and into the parking lot completely unannounced. Three and four at a time. Suddenly two hundred or more hot sweaty bus riders would appear at the take out counter all clamoring , shoving , pushing screaming out their orders, afraid the bus would leave without them.

It was sheer madness for twenty minutes, up to your a*s in the coolers and just as soon done. It was gross. Shirt, pants arms and shoes coated with forty flavors and as many sauces as flavors. Obviously Fran just made a pile of dough.

Thursday night we stayed open for breakfast after midnight. Friday and Saturday nights the same. This was just like the busses except we fed eggs by the thousands to the drunks coming from last call at the bars.

Thursday was mild compared to the other two days. Starting around midnight and lasting till three, Fran and I would scramble, poach and over easy so many orders. Omlettes with bacon with fries , some with ham, rye toast, wheat, bagel ,buttered and not. It was chaos. The place seated one hundred thirty and always had an hour wait and it was usual to do three turns.

We would make up scrambled eggs in five gallon buckets and just ladle the mix onto the grill, sitting beside us were two gross of eggs waiting to be cooked and eaten.

Six , six slice toasters filled and never cooling down for hours. Two double fryers screaming away at three hundred and fifty degrees. Of course we always availed the Abigail both plain and Blonde.

This was as gross as the take out counter except now it was egg and drippings all over you.

This brings me to the left and the right of the matter. Some nights I would get off around midnight and one of the prep cooks would take over. I would take a right out of the lot and just up the street, was the Dial Tone Lounge.

This was a real different type of place. I believe it was a creation of the mob from New York. It had all the earmarks. The place was huge, It had a hundred seat bar fashioned into a giant horseshoe and one hundred and fifty booths. The Dial Tone did not have windows and if it did they were painted over or blacked out. The wood on the booths and bar was that heavy black mediterranean of the day. The seats covered in red velour. This place would have made a great whorehouse back in Nevada in the day. Then again thinking about this place, it was not that far from that designation now. Here is the kicker, the fly in the butter , the t**d in the punch.

Directly over each bar seat was a light. They were red globes and each carried a number. It was the same at the booths . Additionally each booth and bar seat had a telephone. Kind of like prehistoric texting. You could quietly wait for several people to get on the phone. This was the chance to make a call to that hot piece just over there and she would never know who it was that was on the other end. This process kept your dignity in order just in the rare (Ha!) case you were told to take a hike. Friday and Saturday nights would see phone bills of staggering dimension if they were to be billed. A call over there, movement from there to number 102. Bar 3 to booth 64 and on . It was all quite amusing and I am glad I got to experience it before it died a quick death.

So left was the better turn.