Everything But Anchovies

[judy]

When's Louie's Lunch going to close? Freshman year, I remembered hearing a rumor that it was closing...and it's been about 4 years since then.

[jtwcornell91]

Joe's was great by my college tastes, and their Chicken Marsala ruined me for anyone else's.  But a much better version of what Joe's should have been is Palazzio in Montecito, CA.  A combination of highbrow pasta sauces with enormous portions that allowed you to get about four meals out of a full bowl for around $10-15, the clientele always seemed to be a mixture of grad students and fashion models.  (I know, only in California...)

[jtwcornell91]

How about waiting across the street at 660 (site of many Hot-Truck-fueled all-night philosphical discussions)?

[jtwcornell91]

By "fish bowl" do you mean the dust bowl (which got landscaped my sophomore year), or is it something that predates even me?  The only fishbowl I remember was in Uris.

[Lowell '99]

I was very skeptical about the new Hot Truck ownership as well, but I must admit to being happy with how things are.  Change is unavoidable, and Hot Truck Mike is a really nice guy.  Plus, he doesn't burn the bread like Bob used to.  If you want to try a great new school sandwich, I recommend the "Haus," named after my old off-campus house (and home to many, many Cornell BRB trumpet players as well as Phreaky Phunky Phil).  

But damn the Residential Housing initiative putting all freshmen on North.  From what I hear, it's hurtin' the truck.

[Graham \'02]

When's Louie's Lunch going to close? Freshman year, I remembered hearing a rumor that it was closing...and it's been about 4 years since then.

Louie's is still alive and kicking after 84 years.  I think it was changed ownership about 5 years ago, and it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

[Greg Berge]

> A fern bar, as I understand it, is a place in the style of Chili's or Applebee's or TGI Friday's, but I wasn't aware that the Palms had become such a place.

No, that's not really my meaning.  "Fern bar" was a derogatory 1980's term for taking an aging dive bar and gentrifying it -- one of the telltale signs was hanging plants as part of the decor.  It didn't really connote a chain bar like Applebees.  The Palms went through a series of really awful transformations in the late 80's, including actually having lights in the place (you wouldn't have wanted to see what was in your drink in the early 80's), but the unkindest cut of all was the removal of the bowling for beers game that used to occupy the right hand corner as you entered.  Without that, it's just another bar.


> By "fish bowl" do you mean the dust bowl (which got landscaped my sophomore year), or is it something that predates even me? The only fishbowl I remember was in Uris.

We did call that part of Uris where you can survey the floor below you the "fish bowl."  However, "Fish Bowl" was also the nickname of the bar on the first floor of Noyes in the early 80's, so named because there was a long window outside that people could stroll by and, um, shop.  Undergrads being what they are, and West Campus at that time being what it was, it was a notorious and ludicrously convenient meat market.

When the drinking age went from 18 to 20 in 1983, and then 21 in 1984, Cornell's lawyers decided it wasn't at all A Good Thing to have a bar right on West Campus, and shut it for good.

[melissa]

I though that Joe's was great. But I'll admit that throughout college my standards were kinda low.... and then there was the fact that they were one of the few places in town to have decent seafood. A maritimer needs seafood! :-P yum!

[melissa]

a bar on west campus? damn! that would have been interesting!

[Josh '99]

Graham '02 wrote:

Unfortunately Hot Truck has really gone downhill since Bob sold it.  Not only is the food not as good, but it just doesn't seem right for a 25 year-old guy with two earings in a backwards baseball cap to be cooking it.

Keep in mind that when Bob started, HE was a 25 year-old guy (give or take)...  the earrings and cap are really just stylistic differences from the typical Ithaca youth of the '50s to that of the '90s.

Also, as far as food quality goes, when many of us (ok, not Al and Jim) were at Cornell, Bob had been making sandwiches for a LOONNNG time, close to 40 years by the time he retired.  Even though he's been at it for a year or two now, based on how hard Bob worked to find what he considered a suitable new owner, I think Mike deserves a chance.  (Personally, while it may have taken him a while, I think he's getting the hang of it.)

Damn, now I'm hungry.  Hot Truck and 7:30 am, two things that don't usually mix.

[jtwcornell91]

Kid of like the Thirsty Bear on North Campus, which was also a victim of the 21-year-old drinking age.  (Apparently UC Santa Barbara managed to hang onto their University Center Pub into the early 1990s, although I wasn't enough of a driker to find it before it closed.)

[jtwcornell91]

I wonder if Louie's will take on some of Hot Truck's campus legend status now that all the Freshmen are living on North Campus.  (Another reason this is a bad idea, BTW.)

Of course, I lived on North all four years (except one summer at 660), but was introduced to Hot Truck over the years.  Perhaps it will be something rediscovered annually by Sophomores who move to West, and introduced through them to the Freshmen.

Something else that just occurred to me: does this mean no more Orientation Counselors on West?  I suppoose Orientation Week is different now that it's got a reading list anyway.  ::nut::

[Josh '99]

There is a bar in Cheel.  It is good.  :-D

[AdamGanderson]

Lest anyone think the horror Big Red Apple mentions has become the standard (or has even been repeated to my knowlege), it hasn't.  Hot Truck is still damn fine and made before your eyes (if you care enough to press your eyes up to the window.)

THere has been a change or two (probably not news to most, but since we're talking about Hot Truck anyway...)  Bob finally sold the Truck to Shortstop (presumably under the proviso that they not change anything...) And while it feels wrong to wait inside in a warm well lit space to get your WGC or whatnot, the fountain soda big as your head for a dime is a nice addition to the dining experience.  

FWIW.

3.5 days to Hot Truck....

[CUlater \'89]

Catching up on this interesting thread:

1.  Didn't Louie's already have that type of status, at least for those of us who lived on North Campus freshman year (or beyond)?  I know my group of friends with whom I lived in Donlon freshman year have lots of stories about Louie's, including one guy carrying a steak sub across campus to the Security Norstar ATM at the Campus Store at 1 a.m., then deciding he didn't want so he left it in the deposit slot.

Heck, Louie's led us to actually buy Steak-Ums in an effort to recreate the steak sub once we moved off-campus.

2.  Joe's was very good (by any standards, given the cost) in the late 80s and very early 90s.  Probably around 1991-1992 it started to change, with portions getting smaller, breadsticks just a little off, not as many peppers in the bottomless salad.  It was perhaps a victim of its own success, as the owners seemed to want to move people through there even faster.  Little Joe's in C-town was never as good, IMHO.  The owners started having disputes, I think one of them moved out of town and gave up his share and things continued downhill.  FYI:  the guy who moved had some connection to the lax team so I often saw ex-laxers (heh, heh) there and parents of the guys on the hockey team often ate there as well  (when coming to town for games in the 90s, our pre-game meals were at Joe's one night and Aladdin's the other).

3.  Keep in mind, Ithaca is a city and Hanover is just a town (just like Cornell is a university and Dartmouth is just a college, although with a little watering and TLC, it might grow up to be a university like its Ivy siblings).

4.  As for the Palms, it was always a dive bar to me (or at least I thought so until I started going to real dive bars in Boston and NYC), but like Greg said, the alums from earlier times thought it had been gentrified too much (of course, I feel that way about it now).  When they added a CD jukebox in the back in '88 or '89, it turned into yuppie-central (overflow from Ruloff's?)

5.  You can't just the Hot Truck by the food served on the Arts Quad at Reunions.  It's a totally different operation when they gear up for such a large (and relatively captive) audience.