Our Little Town

Early History of the Roadside Rest
An Exclusive Interview with Morty Shor (son of its co-founder, Leon Shor)

By Howard B. Levy

 

On January 4, 2004, and again seven years later on December 12, 2010, I had the distinct pleasure and privilege of interviewing by telephone at his home in W. Palm Beach, Florida, the delightful Morty Shor whose father, Leon, co-founded the famous Roadside Rest in 1921 together with his brother-in-law (and Morty's uncle), Murray Hadfield. I found Morty still vibrant and sharp both at age 81 and almost 88. 

The Roadside Rest was originally built in Oceanside, New York, as a fruit and vegetable stand (building pictured below at left after expanding the fare to include 10¢ frankfurters on rolls, sandwiches and drinks). But by the late 1920s, Shor and Hadfield had built the huge and beautiful, Spanish-style restaurant known for its hot dogs and seafood pictured at the upper left and in the color photo below at right. 

     
 

As all Oceansiders should know (but many today probably do not), in the 1930s and very early 1940s, our magnificent Roadside Rest was also widely renowned and hugely popular for its first class, live, big band entertainment and dancing, and people came from miles around to enjoy it.

Morty Shor told me that during its glory days, big band musicians and songwriters frequently hung out there and that several swing era classics were actually written in our little town on the Garden Terrace tables of the Roadside Rest. For example, Morty said the lyrics to two songs made famous in instrumental versions by such musical giants as Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, "Moonglow" and "(In My) Solitude," were written there in 1934 by lyricist, Eddie DeLange. (You should now be listening to an excerpt from an  Artie Shaw version of "Moonglow.")

Morty told me that the most significant and precipitous factor in the decline of the Oceanside Roadside Rest's business, soon after the U.S. entered World War II at the end of 1941, was gasoline rationing. He said that pleasure driving was virtually banned in the United States and that, as a result, wooden barricades were set up that summer to block beach traffic on Long Beach Road, the lifeline of the business.

Near the time the Roadside Rest's business entered its abrupt decline during WWII, Leon and his brother-in-law/partner had a falling out and decided to part ways. So sometime in mid-late 1942, when Morty was 20 years old, Leon left the business, and Murray Hadfield ended up with the then sinking Oceanside Roadside Rest. According to Morty, neither he nor Leon ever went back to it. Debt-ridden and struggling, Hadfield shut the decaying property down briefly in 1956 and soon sold out to Murray Handwerker, which led to its becoming, in June 1959, the spectacular Nathan's Famous that we all knew.

When I first talked to him in 2004, Morty spoke joyfully of our Roadside Rest during its pre-1942 heyday as follows:

"It was a grand and glorious era, a wondrous time that gave me many, many fond memories. In fact, not a week goes by today when I don't meet someone who speaks fondly of his or her memories of that place."

  

Click here to read what Morty Shor said about our Nathan's/Roadside Rest page.

  

Food was served on this china
in the late 1930s and early '40s.
  

  

Below is a supper menu (sold on eBay, November 30, 2010, for $51.00 to a member of Morty's family) that was used at the Roadside Rest in May 1942 shortly before most of us were born and just after it reached its peak and began to decline:

 
  

Note above the wide variety of meals available in the evening, everything from cold or hot sandwiches, hot dogs and hamburgers to shrimp and crabmeat cocktail appetizers with full steak or seafood platters or Chinese dishes! And look at those prices!! In case you can't read them, here is a sample:

  • Franks or hamburgers.............................

$ .20

  • Shrimp or crabmeat cocktail...................

$ .50

  • Lobster Newburg on toast.......................

$1.25

  • Egg Foo Yung..........................................

$ .75

  • Club sandwich.........................................

$ .75

  • Cream cheese and jelly sandwich..........

$ .15

  • Hot roast beef sandwich..........................

$ .60

  • Sirloin steak platter.................................

$1.25

  • Sirloin steak platter, extra large.............

$2.00

  • Pie a la mode..........................................

$ .20

There was a minimum charge in 1942 of $1 per person on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays and $.50 on weekdays, but it included dancing every night to live music!

A cover from an earlier menu (circa late 1930s-early 1940s) follows:

  

    
Although our Oceanside Roadside Rest is widely and fondly remembered as "an institution on Long Island," very few people left today know that during the famous Roadside Rest's prime, Leon Shor and Murray Hadfield also owned and operated two branch locations, both of which were opened in the 1930s after the Oceanside original; one was nearby on Sunrise Highway in Merrick, Long Island (no connection to the bikers' restaurant/bar/nightclub called "Jugs & [N] Strokers Roadside Rest" currently operated in Merrick at what could be the same Sunrise Highway location), and the other was in Miami Beach, Florida (at Dade Blvd. and Alton). Both closed in the early 1940s, and the Miami Beach location then became a commissary to feed the U.S. military during WWII.

I have been unable to find any photos of the original Merrick Roadside Rest, but below are three views of the art-deco style Miami Beach branch (which Morty calls, "the prettiest") circa 1937:
    

   
   

The promotional message on the back of these postcards quite modestly proclaimed as follows:
   

Fame  Marches On From Long Island to Miami Beach
   
 
 The ROADSIDE REST's gay, romantic atmosphere fasci-
nating dance music and delicious food well served, constitute it
as one of the outstanding places for pleasure-lovers
Here you  may  dine  and  dance  in  the  Garden  Patio,  or  in  the
Rainbow Dining Room, a veritable paradise under the stars

Free Parking space
Open all year This bright spot caters to the millions

BRANCHES: OCEANSIDE, L. I. and MERRICK, L. I.

Morty also informed me that his father, Leon, was a second cousin to the very famous New York City restaurateur, Toots Shor.

Because of Leon Shor's close friendship with Robert Moses (the primary architect of the parks, stadiums, highways, bridges and tunnels of the New York metropolitan area), he was awarded the contract to operate all of the concessions at Jones Beach from the inception of that facility until 1943 when, following his disassociation from the three Roadside Rests, in West Hempstead, Leon opened the first of four Shor's restaurants you might remember in Nassau County. 

 

 

Copyright © 2004-2011 by Howard B. Levy and 1960 Sailors Association Inc.  All rights reserved.