Weekend Musings

Terry's Dairy For Sale
I noticed there's a FOR SALE sign in the window of Terry's Dairy on East Erie Avenue recently.

It's not too surprising. It's pretty tough as an independent to compete with national chains like Dairy Queen (its former franchisor) and the various other popular frozen treats out there now, such as Menchie's Frozen Yogurt.

The spouse and I tried to do our bit to help out, by favoring Terry's Dairy over its competitor K-Cream Corner. I just figured that the store at the intersection of Oberlin Avenue and East Erie Avenue always seemed to be packed, so Terry's Dairy needed all the help it could get.

But too often we were the only ones there.

Anyway, here's wishing the Haines family good luck with the sale, along with my thanks for decades of great soft serve at that location.

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The Great Mister S and Gyro House Debate

There's a Facebook group that I'm sure many of you are familiar with that's called You Know Your From Lorain. (I know there's a typo in its name, but that's part of its charm.)

The Facebook group has almost 5,000 members, and the comments are a lot of fun to read if you are indeed from Lorain. (UPDATE – for some reason, the moderator for that group has made it a closed group – so if you're not a member already, you can't read the posts.)

Every once in a while I drop in for a visit, and occasionally I've seen my namesake blog mentioned in some of the current postings. It happened recently, and it reminded me that I'm not perfect in my research.

The discussion was about when the Mister S Drive-in had become Gyro House, and someone mentioned that on my blog I had said that it was around 1985. Then a lively discussion followed in which there were a few claims that I was wrong and that it was a few years earlier than that. (One person even thought they had worked at Gyro House in the 1970s.)

As it turns out, I was a couple years off, so thanks to those who noticed and pointed it out.

While rechecking the city directories this past weekend, I saw that the last appearance of Mister S in the city directory was 1982, and the first appearance of Gyro House was in the 1983 edition. The phone book (which I didn't consult at the time) had Mister S last appearing in its 1981 edition and Gyro House in the 1982 edition.

I was probably just a little sloppy in my research that day. Sometimes I'll stop at the library on the way home from work (half-starved), dash inside, quickly paw through the available books to look up something, scribble some notes, and then head for home – and dinner. Later on, I try to decipher what I wrote.

The whole thing reminded me that although I try to be thorough in my research, I do make mistakes. And feel free to point them out – there are plenty of them out there already in books and articles about Lorain, I certainly don't want to add to them!

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My Rosie's Pizza

Why isn't Rosie's caricature on the box?

This past Saturday night was a 'girl's night out,' and the spouse left me to fend for myself for dinner. I was tempted to hit Mutt & Jeff's by myself, but I wasn't ready to join the regulars at the end of the bar just yet.

Anyway, I decided to treat myself to a Rosie's Pizza while I watched my John Wayne DVD from the library. Although I love Yala's Pizza (the pizza I grew up on) and Selenti's (the pizza we get most often), I really think Rosie's is my favorite now.

It's such a unique pizza that if you've never had one, you don't know what you're missing. It's a totally different mixture of cheese and spices than the rest. The crust is great too.

See for yourself (below).

I ordered a large (shown above) and had no trouble inhaling half of it even before John Wayne had left the fort with the cavalry on their big mission into Injun country. But I managed to use remarkable restraint and save half for the spouse for a later snack.

A "Rosie" Outlook for Pizza

I've already mentioned in this space how I grew up on Yala's Pizza and how it is still the pizza I look forward to every Friday night. However, I have to mention my other favorite pizzeria: Rosie's Pizza Palace.

   I never even had a Rosie's pizza until I was well into my thirties. It was one of those nights when the wife left me to fend for myself for dinner on a Friday night, so I gave Rosie's a try – and I was hooked.

   It's a very different pizza from Yala's. Very brown and well-done; a spicier cheese, a different crust. I think it's great. My wife and I still prefer Yala's, but every so often I sneak over to Rosie's.

   The ad shown above is from 1961, when she moved her business back to Lorain. (She had started her own place in Avon at the corner of Lear Nagel and Detroit Road around 1958. Then it was back to Lorain, at the corner of Ninth and Broadway in 1961. For a while, her ads showed two locations: 3113 Broadway and 1032 Broadway. But she soon focused on just the 3113 Broadway spot and that is where the business is today.)

   I love the Rosie mascot. Her family still uses it in ads. (They later gave her a slight makeover (at right.)

   Lorain is lucky to have so many authentic pizzas to choose from.