In the Catskills: A Century of Jewish Experience in "The Mountains" (37 page)

When the chef saw Audrey, he said, “Look at her in her fancy dress, making all the money, while I sweat my balls off. Get the hell out of here, bitch.”

Audrey tried to laugh. She picked up the French frieds, cleaned off the corner of the plate where some steak juice had spilled, and left.

Mr. Mandheimer told the chef to “Take it easy. You got half a summer to go yet. You’ll have high blood pressure.”

“I don’t like no bitch to put it over on me,” the chef said. “The guests tell me about her. She’s the one put them up to that breast of beef. Who ever heard of a headwaiter couldn’t sell veal cutlets and hamburgers?”

“Those things happen,” Mr. Mandheimer said softly.

“Sure they happen,” the chef said. He put the final tray of steaks on the table, and the two cooks dished them out. “But they don’t have to happen. Listen to me, boss, I been in this business all my life. You get yourself a good headwaiter, get a man in the dining room, and you’ll see your food costs drop. I’ll bet you my salary, you’ll save ten thousand dollars in a season.”

“That’s a lot of money,” Mr. Mandheimer said.

One of the waiters came over to the stove and asked if there were seconds on steaks.

“No seconds. Seconds, yet,” the chef said. “Get out.”

“Come back later,” Mr. Mandheimer said eyeing the tray of steaks, “if there’s any left, we’ll give you.”

“What d’you think that veal cutlet cost you?” the chef said. “She don’t serve them. That’s a total waste. Ain’t a chef in the world can do anything with cold veal cutlet. I had to give them to the help.”

“You couldn’t give them to the kids?”

“Ah, now boss, you think I’d give the children what’s left over?”

“There’s nothing wrong with putting it in the refrigerator. They don’t eat frozen food at home?”

“So what did you tell me at the beginning of the season? The best for the kids. That’s your very words.”

“Veal cutlets, the best.”

“All right, so tomorrow I’ll give them what’s left over from the chicken à la king appetizer today.”

“No. Please, forget it,” Mr. Mandheimer said.

Audrey Grier came in and stood through the last part of their conversation. When they were finished, she spoke to Mr. Mandheimer. Her voice was as soft and controlled as she could manage. “All the firsts have been served, Mr. Mandheimer. Do you think I could have a second for Mr. Golden on table one?” Her eyes dropped to the tray of steaks. There were four left.

“What d’you mean, seconds?” the chef roared. “What’d he give you, a dollar? Give me the dollar. Give me the dollar. I’ll give you the steak.”

“Look, I haven’t seen a penny from him,” Audrey Grier said. She was getting bold. “Do I get the second or don’t I? I’m sick and tired of all this aggravation—aggravation in the kitchen, aggravation in the dining room—”

“You’re aggravated. You’re aggravated,” the chef screamed. His head jutted forward and he beat his fists hard against his breast. “I sweat my goddamn balls off. I kill myself behind this goddamn stove, and
she’s
aggravated. Goddamn you, get out of here! Get out of here before I kill you.”

Audrey Grier’s face paled. She trembled and rubbed her hands together. Al Brodie was on his way to pick up desserts when he saw her. For a moment it looked as if she were going to faint. He came over to her and took her by the arm.

“I got some trouble on table thirty. I need you,” he said.

He could feel her body shaking as he led her back to the dining room.

Mr. Mandheimer gave a busboy a steak two minutes later, with instructions to give it to Audrey.

Reflections on the Delmar Hotel and the Demise of the Catskills

Jerry A. Jacobs

F
or many years I rarely discussed my parents’ hotel, but lately I find myself mentioning it more often. As I settle into my forties and watch my two little girls grow up, I wonder how to tell them what it meant to me to grow up in the Catskills. I also want to understand how the Catskills vanished so quickly and so completely that an archive had to be established to ensure that some traces survive.

In our family there was often talk about writing a book about the hotel. But how to capture the zaniness, the colorful characters, the exhausting routine, and the special camaraderie that made up the Delmar Hotel? We would try organizing it around a day in the life. My mom rose at six to begin to prepare for breakfast, first for the staff, then for the guests. My dad bantered with a guest who was up at dawn waiting to complain about something askew. The day ended at 11
P.M
. as the nightly performance in the casino drew to a close and the last trays in the tearoom, where guests would repair after the show, were put away. Then we would try a year in the life, trying to evoke the rhythm of preparing for the summer onslaught, the rush of the first guests arriving, and the long, slow process of shutting the hotel down after “the season.”

But neither of these schemes left room for some of the best stories. Like the time the owner of the hotel across the street hired a man to burn down his place. The arsonist got drunk, mixed up the directions, and ended up burning down the main building of what was then the Jacob Inn. Or the story about the man who walked up to the front desk and told my dad, “I bet you don’t remember me.” Dad replied, “Your name is Epstein, right? You were here about thirty-five years ago, am I right?” And he was. Or the way the guests would come to the bakery to ask for a care package for the trip home. “I’m going to an empty house,” they would say. “Perhaps you have a
bissel
cake and a few cookies for me?” A reasonable enough request, except that 150 guests were all going home to an empty house, and a sorcerer’s apprentice was needed to keep the take-home bags filled. And where would we profile Sadie Cohen, the ultimate irrepressible
yenta
, who would insist on special-ordering every element in a Hawaiian salad? And Theodosha “Terry” Jones, the steady chambermaid who served tea to the guests after the show, after a full day of straightening up the rooms. We all thought that Terry’s son, Doug Jones, beat Cassius Clay in their 1965 professional boxing bout, but he was robbed of the decision.

We never could come up with the right way to capture it all. So here I won’t even try to paint a full portrait. Instead I’ll recall a few things that evoke the later years of the Catskills, much later than Herman Wouk’s
Marjorie Morningstar
and the rise of Jerry Lewis and the other Borscht Belt comedians. And I’ll take a stab at explaining the demise of the Catskills.

G
ROWING
U
P

I grew up in the Delmar Hotel, located just east of Liberty, New York on Route 52, between Grossinger’s and Brown’s. The hotel was started by my grandfather, who opened it for guests in the summer of 1929, just before the stock market crash that would plunge the nation into a sustained depression. After the Second World War, the hotel was run by my dad and mom, Max and Claire Jacobs. My parents met in Paris during the war, and my French mother was responsible for the names of the buildings at the hotel—Biarritz, Capri, Deauville, Lido, and Riviera. Our place could accommodate about 150 guests, but this was considered a small hotel.

My first recollection of the hotel is from when I was three or four. I walked into the kitchen naked, holding my clothes in front of me, dodging the waiters rushing to bring their breakfast orders to the guests. “Mommy, get me dressed!” I called out over the din, as I slid in between the steam table and the big serving table. The steam table was hot enough to burn your fingers, and the serving table was the center of traffic. I knew that you had to watch your step during meal time—steer clear of the busboys who were not too sure of their balance while hauling the busboxes overstuffed with dishes, the dishwashers swinging the newly cleaned kettles around, the people rushing from the pantry to the bakery to the walk-in refrigerator. But I felt I knew my way around well enough.

My mother was busy pouring pancakes onto the griddle. Everyone laughed to see the buck-naked little boy wandering around the bustling kitchen. “You are going to have to learn to put your pants on,” one of the waiters pointed out. I felt a little embarrassed, although at first I didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. So people could see my tush—so what? I held my clothes in front of my privates—why was everyone laughing at me? My mom put down her pitcher of pancake batter, scooped me up, dressed me, and ushered me into the children’s dining room, where I ordered my usual, French toast “with a stick of jelly.”

I did learn to put my pants on, of course, and before long I was one of the waiters rushing around the kitchen, carrying trays and trying to keep all of the orders straight. I remember standing in the very same spot one Passover breakfast, next to the steam table, putting the finishing touches on a tray of matzohbrie, medium-boiled eggs, and farfel cereal when my father burst in, just back from picking up the mail, waving two thick envelopes in his hand. “Harvard and Yale—both with scholarships!” I smiled to myself as I lifted my tray and walked with measured steps out to my station in the dining room. I collected my hugs after I had finished serving breakfast. When you had thirty or more people waiting for their breakfast, family celebrations had to wait.

Working at the hotel had always been about saving money for college. My dad even posted signs in the lobby:

SUGGESTED TIPS: WAITERS, $6 PER WEEK,
BUSBOYS, $4 PER WEEK, CHAMBERMAIDS, $3 PER WEEK
.

We then made the standard even more brazen by amending the sign to read

SUGGESTED MINIMUM TIPS
.

Dad’s loyalty seemed perfectly divided between the guests, whose comfort and satisfaction we had to cultivate, and the staff, including his sons, who were working three meals a day, seven days a week, saving up money for college. With about 30 guests per station, one could earn $180 per week as a waiter, and over the course of 10 weeks save perhaps $1,500 toward college. During the inflationary 1970s we hiked the rates up to $8 per week for the waiters, and I think even $10 for the 8-day Passover holiday. With college room and board costing around $5,000, it took a couple of summers to earn enough to pay for one year of college.

But I’ve gotten a little ahead of the story, because the dining room was the last rung, not the first, on the hotel employment ladder. As a little child, I had a lot of room to roam. We had a swimming pool, a merry-go-round, and an awesome metal slide that could get quite hot in the midday sun. As a teenager I could practice my tennis swing on the backboard of the handball court. And I certainly had more freedom than most kids my age. But I soon had to go to work, an experience that many children of small-business owners know well. Following my older brother, Howie, my first job was taking care of the pool. At eleven I added the candy store to my portfolio, again following in my brother’s footsteps. At first it was a great thrill to go to the candy wholesalers—Briker Brothers in Liberty—to order cases of pretzels, potato chips, and candies. Sodas were delivered by trucks decked out in Coca-Cola and Seven-Up logos. My dad liked to joke that I was my own best customer. And next to the store was a pinball machine that I got to know intimately.

But the clientele of the hotel was in the midst of a rapid change. Just a few years earlier the children’s dining room had been filled to the brim with 40 boisterous youngsters and nearly as many mothers hovering, making sure that their little Mark or Janet had eaten dinner. But suddenly the families stopped coming. The Marks and Janets went to summer camps, many of which were themselves located in the Catskills. So my candy store made $200 for the whole summer when I was 11, and only $150 when I was 12. The long hours and sparse customers eventually wore on me, although I did get to read a lot. I thought I would have enough free time to complete a correspondence law program then advertised on matchbook covers. When a representative called me, he suggested that I finish high school and college first.

Near the end of that summer, the pantry man quit, and my parents and I decided to close the candy store and put me in charge of the pantry. I learned the basics quickly enough—I could make an attractive “Hawaiian” salad and even cut up the 3-pound blocks of cream cheese into presentable portions. Shredding vats of cole slaw, filleting the
matjes
herring—the specific tasks were hardly difficult. I remember betting my friend Matt Bessen that I could cut up 7 lemons in a minute—I think I lost, but it was close. There was plenty of variety, but a fair amount of drudgery as well. Putting away the food (“the livestock”) was a tedious chore after every meal. And preparing for the meals could take considerable time. Preparation was everything, for during meal time the requests would pour in faster than one could keep up with. I remember having to section grapefruits for an overflow crowd of 175 guests at Passover, and it seemed that every other night’s dinner opened with grapefruit.
Dayenu!

After a full summer in the pantry it was on to the dining room. At fourteen I was a bit young to be a busboy, but I worked with my older brother Howie. At eighteen he was a seasoned veteran and could show me the ropes. I promised not to overfill the busboxes. After dinner, I would do Howie’s set-up for him, because he had to change quickly in order to play saxophone and clarinet for the evening shows. I filled in for him once, played terribly, and the piano player (who doubled as an art instructor) refused to work with me again. And thus I avoided working five nights a week in the band in addition to my three-meals-a-day, seven-days-a-week day job.