Posted on 02/27/2019 11:09:31 AM PST by Coleus
Move over egg creams and doughnuts. Sprouts are moving in.
Schnackenberg’s, an old-fashioned luncheonette that for 88 years served classic concoctions of seltzer with chocolate syrup, tuna melts and other staples of decades past, has closed, a victim of what its owner said were changing times and healthier tastes.
An eatery with a different menu and a different vibe will take Schnackenberg’s place on Washington Street, between 11th and 12th streets, under the name “Alfalfa.”
“Doughnuts and milkshakes are not the steady diet of modern Hobokenites,” said Joyce Flinn, who along with her husband, Eugene, bought Schnackenberg’s from the daughter of its original owners just after Hurricane Sandy.
“We had the most awesome doughnuts in town, and people would say, ‘Oh, I love those doughnuts!’ But if you eat one doughnut a month, that’s not going to pay my rent,” Flinn said in an emotional phone interview. “It wasn’t an easy decision to make, and we didn’t make it lightly. It was really a long-considered and painful choice.”
Schackenberg’s was opened in 1931 by the parents of Dorothy Novak (née Schnackenberg), who continued to live upstairs from the restaurant in the family-owned building until she passed away not long ago. During the height of the Great Depression, Hoboken was a largely working class shipping port that bore little resemblance to the popular night spot or high-rent New York City bedroom community it would eventually become. The food was basic luncheonette fare: burgers, shakes, tuna melts, store-made doughnuts, and a nod to Schnackenberg’s German heritage called the eggtzel, a kind of pretzel breakfast sandwich.
The luncheonette underwent a makeover after the Flinns took control. But, Joyce Flinn said a shrinking clientele and a protracted construction project on Washington Street that discouraged walk-in traffic made it clear
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
ha. So you’re not a strawberries & cream person? Guess you didn’t like creamsicles (Dreamsicles) either
Ha! We had a small station like that just outside of town going to the lake. Stepped inside and there was a small shelf of basic fishing supplies and a tank of minnows. Was our go-to bait store.
I had a grandfather who was a pharmacist and owned a drug store. He had a soda fountain. He died before I was born, but the stories of all of this stuff being made there are legendary.
Check the high score...
We have an ice cream/candy shop in town that looks like that. Best ice cream and candy around. Still going gangbusters since around the 1950’s I think. They recently expanded and opened up another shop in the newer part of town. They got creative though and expanded their candy into all the drug stores here. They have their own end cap in all of them. It’s the candy Kevin McCarthy recently gave to someone on the floor of the House of Reps.
https://www.dewarscandy.com/
Ah, sorry. I was thinking YooHoo syrup not Yoo Hoo drink.
I never cared for YooHoo drinks. Tasted like chocolate water or chocolate skim milk to me.
Wonderful to know our once great country and culture hasn’t been totally destroyed by the left. At least not yet anyway.
That’s the thing. They are so refreshing! I learned of them in NYC east village in the early eighties as a newbie from Ohio.
I had them at a place called Kiev and a deli with an Optima cigar sign. Also Veselka. Delicious!
Cool.
That plus a brand of cream soda that goes best with it (trial & error).
Again, mostly Yoo Hoo, less cream soda.
If you want a great candy order their peanut butter chews. Addictive! I’m afraid to open a box because I keep going back til they’re gone. Lol
Any relation?
“ha. So you’re not a strawberries & cream person? Guess you didn’t like creamsicles (Dreamsicles) either”
Well, interesting, I do like Creamsicles.
It’s really syrup I’m talking about, mixed with milk vs soda.
Maybe it’s because the fruit flavors were artificial.
“No soda for you!”
Rick Sebak did a ton specials for PBS , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Sebak
We used to drink a “chocolate soldier” in a bottle shaped like a soldier. Similar to Yahoo.
Ya can’t talk me into that one.
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