I lunched at Conrad's Ice Cream Parlor as a kid, and this place hasn't changed since. There's something comforting knowing that there are constants that don't need to modernize with the times.
They have booths or tables, but doesn't sitting at the counter sound like fun?
Have a cherry lime ricky, $3.
Soup cans from New Jersey-based soup maker Campbell's.
Soul-nourishing tomato soup, $2. I love their sky blue plates and bowls, which the teenage girls behind the counter wash by hand.
Homemade ice cream.
I'll take coffee served this way over a disposable cup and plastic lid any day: a cup of joe, $1.
Okay, some things do change: the music that was playing, not any 1950s music or something more festive that would match its theme. Instead, Nine Inch Nails!
Visit Conrad's Ice Cream Parlor and Luncheonette, 107 Westwood Ave., Westwood, New Jersey.
Up next: a visit to the 1930's.
2 comments:
I know this sounds incredibly dorky, but those old counters make my chest ache (in a good way!). Reminds me of the "five and dime" store back in Pittsburg, KS, where I used to saddle up to the counter to get a milkshake while my mom did her shopping. It's where I first saw a Mennonite woman who didn't shave her legs and realized that it was possible to be a woman who did things differently. Just...oy. Home. When things were far less digital and detached.
Well I must be dorky too because I feel similar emotions.
Interestingly, this town has a five and dime store, and has a great main street area with everything you could want (independent friendly book store, record shop with used CDs, consignment clothing/shoe store, movie theater, mom & pop restaurants, etc.) I've bemoaned the dying of main streets for a while, especially in the mall-centric area I live in. I'm glad places like Conrad's still exist.
Being a little technologically detached sounds like a nice change of pace. While technology has its merits, I could write an entire post about the rude behaviors, seven day work weeks which have developed, etc. that I see tied into a lot of it. With all these advances, people don't seem to have more free time - it seems (to me at least), quite the opposite case.
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