By Ricky Rieckert
Dear readers,
I am going to finish up last week’s story of me working at The Blue Lantern Restaurant, where I started working in the summer of 1974.
My favorite waitress to work with was Pam, she was Chinese, gorgeous, friendly, and always gave me pointers.
One weekday night, a Thursday night I believe, it was a usually slow night. There was only one waitress and a busboy, Pam and I.
An hour before closing it became a mildly-steady night. Pam came back to the bus-station and asked me if I had ever had lobster, to which I replied no.
She said, that a customer had ordered a one-pound lobster tail and only ate one-quarter of it. The customer didn’t want a doggie bag, so Pam cut off where the customer had eaten from and then cut up the remaining lobster into bite size chunks for us to eat.
I took a piece and dipped it in the seasoned butter and tried it. I absolutely loved it!
It didn’t take us long to polish it off. I thanked her.
I didn’t have lobster again while working there, but one Saturday, before work, and preparing for a meal, John Benakis, the owner, asked if I would like some smoked salmon. He had caught and smoked it himself, and it was delicious. I loved that treat, and had it more than once.
John cut his own steaks, ground his own hamburger meat from steak scraps, and made his own beer-battered onion rings along with other fresh items, that were delicious.
One of the last jobs for a busboy at the end of the night was to make sure all the dirty dishes and glasses went to the kitchen, all of the used linen to the basement to be sent out to be cleaned, and lastly gathering up all of the garbage. In addition, there was a small banquet room in the basement, for Bowling Banquets.
We had a dumbwaiter in the back of the kitchen to take the garbage down to the basement and to bring the cans back-up, along with bringing meat from the coolers and other food products stored in the basement.
The basement of the Blue Lantern, was at ground level in the back, due to it being built on a hill.
After the garbage was in the basement, it would be taken outside to a dumpster at the lot line off of Youngs Avenue. That area where the dumpster sat, was the start of a woods and beyond that led to Oakhurst Nature Preserve today, formerly Hartman’s Woods.
At night, it was very dark back there, with only one street light in the distance. The first night I worked, I had quite an experience taking the garbage out. I approached the dumpster and put up the garbage can to dump into the dumpster. As the can emptied, I heard a rustling and scratching sound inside the dumpster. Suddenly a 50-pound raccoon jumped out, his beaded eyes staring at me.
I jumped back about 10-feet dropping the empty can, frightened as all heck. From that night on, I always threw rocks at the dumpster, as I approached.
We once told a new busboy, that there was a black bear in the dumpster.
Now for some fun. The Original Luigi’s, off of E. New York Street, was next to The Blue Lantern, to the west. On Friday and Saturday nights, we would have three to four busboys. Sometimes we would all go outside to take the garbage out. And one of us, most often me, would hurl a baked potato at Luigi’s back screen door, with wood on the bottom of it. That baked potato, thrown from 50 to 60 feet, would slam into the wood door with a loud thud.
A couple of minutes later, as we all hid behind the dumpster, “Old Man Luigi” would come out looking around saying; “What the hell, going on!”, with his Brooklyn-Italian accent. We would all giggle behind the dumpster until he went back in.
Then we would do it again in about five to 10 minutes. The same thing happened, but we would quit while we were ahead. One time Luigi came over to talk with John about it. John questioned us, but we always stuck together, and denied it.
Year’s later, at a bowling banquet, I attended in my mid-20s, I went from the basement upstairs, in the back of the kitchen to John’s office, where we had a couple of Heineken’s together.
I confessed to him about hitting Luigi’s door with baked potatoes. He said, “I knew you guys did, but you guys were the best workers that I ever had, and harmless fun, breaks up the monotony.”
In February of 1975, one of the waitresses, was going through a difficult divorce. She had her 15-year-old daughter working on Friday and Saturday nights making salads and her 14-year-old son, working as a bus boy, when her ex-husband had found out, he called the National Child Labor Committee in, to get back at her.
They came in to answer the complaint and told John, that he could not employ anyone under 16 years of age.
So the salad girl, all four busboys, including me, and three of the four dishwashers lost our jobs. That left John with one dishwasher, who also was a busboy.
I was so mad and upset, and didn’t tell my mom, until the next day. She said, “well things happen.” Then, she told me to see the manager at Osco Drug that she had known for many years.
I went up to Osco to interview with him, and he told me I would start work as a stock clerk, on my birthday, July 10.
I did start on my birthday, and after walking home from work, my mom told me that John had called. She told him I was at work and asked if she could take a message, where he replied, no that’s fine.
I knew what happened, and told my mom, that he knew today, I turned 16, and he wanted to rehire me back.
A few years later, I took my grandmother to the Blue Lantern for a Sunday lunch. I went into the kitchen, to John’s office. We hugged and talked for a few minutes.
He said he wanted me back on my birthday, and he hasn’t had a crew like “our crew” ever since we left. I teared up and said, I was mad to have to quit something I enjoyed, but it bothered me more, to see him so short-handed, when we left.
We hugged again.
Many years later, I had entered a chili cook-off contest, in the hot division, at the Tiger Club.
I dropped it off, went to my bowling league, and came back to see how I did. I got third place for the hot division, but they only gave trophies for first and second.
I was feeling a bit down at the event, and I ran into John. I learned that he was a judge. I told him despite not winning, there was no chili left in my crockpot. John looked at my pot and said he loved it and he ate the last three bowls of it. He told me I would have won first place in the mild division.
While talking to John, I told him that I saw he sold his house, on the south side of E. New York Street just before Vaughn Road, with the pond. I asked him how much he got for it. He replied, seven figures. It is now a subdivision
That was the last time I saw John before he passed away in 2012.
John,
Thanks for giving me my first job and being a friend. May God bless you and thanks, for the memories….
See you all next week in downtown Aurora.