We were visiting our close friends in New Jersey for the week and we spent three days in New York City as tourists. It was the first time I had ever been to a show on Broadway and the first time I had ever seen the United Nations and the Statue of Liberty. As we walked into the restaurant on New Year’s Eve, the wonderful smell of fresh bread and other Italian foods overwhelmed us. A young man took our coats for us. Part of the building was quite old, other parts looked relatively new. It was broken up into several smaller rooms with four tables in each room so to give some intimacy to the guests. As the young waitress showed us to our table, I noticed an old picture of the opening of the restaurant that was dated 1928. We sat down to a beautiful table with lit candles, a white linen table cloth, flowers, neatly folded cloth napkins with silverware, beautiful china and glassware, and two bottles of Italian wine. She said her name was Alessandra and that she would be our server tonight. I asked Alessandra about the picture. She smiled and said that it was a picture of her Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother on the opening day of the restaurant. “So the restaurant has been in the family ever since?” I asked.
“Oh yes, our family owns it and all that work here are family members. We all live here in New Jersey. My Great Grandfather and Grandmother had run a restaurant in Italy but they left in 1924 to escape Mussolini and the fascists. And, of course, like many immigrants, arriving here they faced terrible discrimination. Despite this, after four years of hard work, saving their money, learning English, and building the original part of this restaurant all by themselves, they were able to open. The restaurant somehow survived the great depression and here we are today. My family’s story of overcoming discrimination and hardship, and achieving success is so very American.” You could hear the pride in her voice as she told her family’s story.
I nodded, thinking in the back of my mind what it means to be an American. Antonio, the young Mexican worker that I met in the brick factory a few years ago immediately came to mind. (See my short story “The Brick Factory,” posted November 3, 2021).
“All the food that we serve is still based on my Great Grandmother’s recipes.” She noted.
“So are the recipes locked in a safe?” I laughed.
“Actually, the recipes were written down in Italian by my Great Grandmother and handed down to my Grandmother and then to my Mother. She is the current keeper of the recipes. And I am next in line to receive the original recipes when I finish my degree at NYU.”
“So, what is your major?” My wife asked.
“I’m a triple major in business, sociology, and foreign languages.”
“Wow! So you speak Italian?”
“Certo, sono cresciuto parlando Italiano.” She responded.
“Sounds Italian to me.” We all laughed and I said, “Well, we are so looking forward to celebrating New Year’s here.”
“We are looking forward to celebrating with you.” She insisted.
She opened one of the bottles of wine and poured all four of us a glass and said she would be back with some warm, Italian bread and some olive oil from a farm owned by their relatives in Italy. We all raised a glass to our wonderful friendship and a Happy New Year. Alessandra arrived with the bread, straight from the oven, warm and delicious with a plate of olive oil. It was going to be a very special New Year’s Eve.
We started on our second glass of wine when Alessandra came to our table with our coats. “I am asking you to please leave the restaurant through the back exit. We have a small fire in the kitchen. It shouldn’t affect our evening but we want to be safe. We will call you back in when we are ready.” We quickly put our coats on, I grabbed the open bottle of wine, and we walked out back with all the other guests and family members from the restaurant. When we got into the back parking lot, it was beginning to snow.
We couldn’t believe what was happening before our eyes. A firetruck and two other vehicles pulled into the parking lot. After several firemen had gone inside, another seized an axe from the truck and starting hitting at part of the outside wall. We could see that there was a fire actually in the wall at the back of the kitchen. A man next to us said that it looked like an electrical fire. For the next hour we watched as another firetruck arrived and the firemen were finally able to contain and put out the flames.
One of the family members came out and apologized to all of us in the parking lot and said that the restaurant would not be able to serve dinner tonight. Our friends said that we would have to go back to their apartment for the evening because all the restaurants in the area were booked for New Year’s Eve.
As we turned to leave, a visibly upset Alessandra came up to us. She had 4 wine glasses. “Take the glasses so you can finish your wine. Also, I have a college friend who works at a small diner down the street in Parsippany. She is saving 4 seats at the counter for you if you can get there in 15 minutes. It’s the only place available tonight. It’s typical New Jersey diner food but at least you will get dinner. And, please, please come back when we reopen.” She gave us a piece of paper with the address of the diner and the name of her friend. She then quickly moved to speak to other guests.
We arrived at the small diner while Paul Simon’s “American Tune” was playing on the jukebox. How appropriate, I thought. Alessandra’s friend recognized us because she had been told that we were formally dressed. In fact, we were the only formally dressed people in the diner. She motioned us to come sit down at the counter. We then spent New Year’s Eve, dressed in our finest clothes, listening mostly to Bruce Springsteen songs over the jukebox, eating Philly steak sandwiches and fries, and welcoming in the 1985 New Year with everyone in the diner singing at the top of their lungs “Born in the USA.” It was a New Year’s Eve I would never forget.
A week or so later our friends sent the restaurant a check to cover the cost of the bottle of wine, the four glasses, and the bread we had eaten. They received a thank-you note and a handwritten invitation for a free meal at the reopening of the restaurant. They were able to go and celebrate the reopening with this wonderful American family.
Several years later one of my students, Carlos, who had been tutoring me with my Spanish and whose parents had emigrated from Cuba, invited me to the opening of his family’s restaurant. The family was so very proud. My wife and I feasted on ropa vieja, roast pork shoulder or pernil, yucca with mojo, rice and beans, maduros, flan, and Cuban coffee. As I looked around the restaurant which was full of family pictures of their lives in Cuba, I thought about Alessandra and the legacy of her family and what they, like Carlos' family and Antonio's family added to the great American tapestry. Each brought their own stories of setbacks and successes; each brought their own traditions; each brought their own hopes and dreams. Each were now contributing to this community we call America.
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