The Red Apple Rest

I was pleasantly surprised to read an article about the Red Apple Rest in the Rockland Jewish Reporter. I have many memories of the Red Apple both as a customer in the 1950s on the way to and from the mountains and in the 1960s as an employee at the outside stand. I can close my eyes and see your father slowly walking in the cafeteria and outside the stand to see if things were up to his standards. My father was Gil Flatow, we lived in Monsey in those days. He was a salesman for Maryland Cup; Herb Freid, an owner, was at my wedding.


I’m not sure what my favorite memory is. I worked a half-day—usually from 4 PM to 2 AM. And in my second summer, 1969, I believe, as night manager I had 12 hour shifts. But the money was great, the food was great, and some of the people I met there, characters out of a Damon Runyon novel, I remember to this day.

By and large, as a college kid, I was impressed by the way some of the long time hands would watch out for us. I remember Sal yelling at me when I asked him for macaroni and cheese with a side order of fries. He told me “no fries” if I had the macaroni and cheese.

You mention important people stopping by. I remember serving a vodka and milk to George Jessel one very early morning when he was on his way down from the mountains. He was dressed in the quasi-military looking outfit he wore in later years and had everyone on the bar side of the cafeteria in stitches with his craziness.

I remember the swarms of kids who came down after the Woodstock festival. They were famished because they hadn’t eaten in two days.

I remember the buses creating temporary havoc, as they would pull in 2 or 3 at a time on their way to Peg Leg Bates’s Hotel. The inside restaurant and outside stand looked like bee hives, there would be lines coming out of the bathrooms and, then, 30 minutes later they were gone. Then, early Sunday morning there would be the buses coming down from Monticello Raceway with the winners and losers creating a tumult in the cafeteria.

I remember Herb mumbling when the high school graduates would leave earlier than they promised him they would, usually a good 2 weeks before Labor Day. I remember going down into the walk-in box and carrying up those racks of frankfurters for the grills.

When I first started, on a Sunday afternoon we would have as many as three grills going but it soon dwindled to two and then one. I can hear the counter people yelling “two off, three off, four back” and I can hear the sound of the hamburgers sizzling on the grill. We used to sell beer from reach in coolers, too, and I remember Bob—the day manager who worked with his wife—yelling, “When you take one out, put one in” so there would always be a full cooler.

I remember the rowdy customers and sometimes the kitchen help, who had to be put on the Short Line bus back to the City by the Tuxedo Police Chief. And I remember the men who had family in the City that they would see only for one day a week during the entire summer. They’d leave on a Monday or Tuesday night and be back in a day and a half.

It was the first time I had heard of Louie’s agency in the Bowery where a lot of the kitchen help signed on for jobs at the Red Apple. I was surprised at the amount of after hours drinking that went on among the help—I was naive, I guess.

It was hard work but the pay was good for a college kid. I don’t long for those days, but I won’t forget them.

Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow