June 3, 1977. First issue of Gusto. Bar/restaurant feature. Boardwalk and the Electric Company

 

With the arrival of Gusto came a new assignment – bar of the week, familiar terrain for me in those days. On excursions like this one, tongue was kept firmly in cheek.

June 3, 1977 Gusto

Boardwalk 

          There’s no pleasure in urban life as giddy as dressing up and taking one’s spiffy self to the new place in town that everybody’s talking about.

          This season the choice is obvious. The word is out far and wide about the Boardwalk and Electric Company, the dazzling new disco and restaurant in the Delaware Park Plaza on Delaware Avenue just north of Amherst Street.

          The sense of anticipation is only heightened by the modishly plain wooden face it presents to the front of the plaza, where first-time visitors are most likely to park.

          The entrance actually is around the corner on the north side, where there’s more parking and a neatly tiled foyer with brass letters saying “Boardwalk 1977” inlaid on the floor.

          These only serve as introductory touches, however. Once inside, this particular Turgeon Brothers enterprise envelopes the senses with one of the most lavish and unexpected decorating schemes in the area.

          Since it’s nearing midnight when we arrive, my date and I turn left into the Electric Company. As discos go, its size is modest and the intimacy is only intensified by the general elegance of the place.

          It seems like four rooms instead of one. The first station is the long bar, which is set off by old-fashioned shuttered cabinets.

          Then, of course, there’s the mirrored dance area, with its invitation to try a few steps on a floor flashing to the music via a pair of color organs.

          As for sitting down, there’s a choice. Parallel to the bar is a row of curved wooden benches from some long-lost bowling alley, Brunswick emblems still in place.

          From there one is only dimly aware of another section in the far corner of the room behind an ornate railing that used to grace St. Joseph’s New Cathedral.

          At the bar, we meet deejay and disco consultant Supershannon, who’s in charge of the softly pulsing music (yes, you can hold conversations here) and Peter Huber, Frank Turgeon’s supervisor of operations.

          Huber’s tall and built like a left tackle for the Buffalo Bills. He’s been with the Turgeons 4½ years and has opened the Meeting House, Great Gatsby and Rochester’s Depot. When he was a kid in New Jersey, he says, he was the original Ronald McDonald.

          His enthusiasm for the place goes above and beyond the call of duty. He sees it as a bellwether in the revival of Buffalo nightclubs and restaurants.

          “It’s a typical San Francisco disco,” he says. “There’s nothing around here like it. I’m not big on discos myself, but this is really flipped out. Watch how the dance floor flashes when they play ‘Disco Lucy.’”

          The Electric Company does its disco thing first class. Dance lessons Tuesdays and Thursdays. Top shelf liquors for the 4 to 9 p.m. happy hours. No wonder there’s often a line of people waiting to get in Friday and Saturday nights.

          The advice, obviously, is to come a little early.

          As the sights unfold, it becomes obvious what happened to the fixtures from St. Joseph’s New Cathedral. They’re here. Decorator Kitty Turgeon has liberally sprinkled them all over.

          Most striking are the big wooden confessionals, which now do duty as phone booths. The brass doors and art deco light fixtures were cast out in the Liberty Bank remodeling.

          The only remnant of the old Steak ‘n Brew on this site is the door to the manager’s office. In all, Huber says, the redecorating took six months.

          The disco isn’t everything here, however. The bigger room is the Boardwalk Café, a restaurant that runs from lunch (15-minute wait for a table is routine) until 2 a.m. weekdays and 4 a.m. on the weekends.

          The décor is ‘70s antique – copper and wood and plants under skylights (the triumph is the bamboo trees centering a couple tables) mixed with etched glass, wicker chairs and a Jack Daniels fan on the ceiling, its many paddles run by a pulley.

          A huge cappuccino machine dominates the bar. To go with the model train which circles the room above one’s head, there’s an honest-to-God railroad caboose for dining. An outdoor patio soon will be built, Huber says.

          “The whole thing is based on a Monopoly game,” he points out. “Boardwalk, the Electric Company, the railroads. But instead of Monopoly names in the restaurant, we used local streets.”

          The first visit is so delightful that a return trip with a party for lunch is imperative. The second time, the comparisons with Mulligan’s Café & Museum of Fine Arts on Hertel Avenue become more clear.

          Although this is a more elaborate layout, the elements and the patrons are pretty much the same. The resemblance continues on the menu. Soup du jour is an excellent cream of spinach. Ditto for the seafood omelettes.

          The flaw here is the service. The soups do not all arrive at the same interval. The hamburger special is cold and overdone. A bottle of wine doesn’t arrive in time for the meal. It’s canceled.

          Beyond that, the costumes worn by the waiters and waitresses (country bumpkins, Peter Pan, flappers) are haphazard and fail to match the visual effect of the rest of the place.

          A friend who takes in one night during the grand opening draws the same conclusions. Here’s hoping these small complaints get worked out during opening weeks. Because Huber’s right. It’s a great place to be.

* * * * *

NIGHT NOTES: The fields behind the Buffalo Psychiatric Center are alive with the sounds of softball any given evening as teams in the city’s barroom league work out for their season openers Sunday at various diamonds around town.

          Many bars sponsor men’s and women’s teams. When the games are over, they adjourn to the home team’s taps to celebrate. One of the longtime stalwarts in these affairs, the Locker Room on Delaware Avenue, has concentrated its efforts elsewhere this year, however.

          The Locker Room is putting seven teams in the city Muni League instead. Two benefits there – the Muni League plays weeknights and the teams can take their post-game party anywhere they please.

* * *

          The summery month of May brought a record spring turnout at the burgeoning club scene along Lake Erie south of the city.

          Mickey Rat’s near Angola, which has expanded its number of bars to three, has been ringing up 1,600 to 1,700 customers on Friday and Saturday nights.

          Further down the shore, Mulligan’s Beach Club in Sunset Bay has resembled Fourth of July weekend for most of the month. Sundays found the sand packed with sunbathers, with a few hardy souls dipping into the 55-degree waters.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: The Turgeon Brothers, Ralph and Frank, were approaching the height of their reign as restaurateurs. At one point, they owned and operated 22 restaurants, many of them upscale – including the Library on Bailey Avenue, the Sign of the Steer on Main Street in the University District and the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, where Kitty Turgeon, Frank’s wife, did a lot to revive Elbert Hubbard’s vision. Eventually, the Turgeons divided up the properties and went their separate ways. The north end of the plaza that the Boardwalk and Electric Company occupied is now a Dollar Tree store.