DINING WITH DAD —
AND THINKING ABOUT HIM NOW WHILE DINING

 
(This essay was in Sunday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer.)

The last time my father, Toby, ate out was at Wendy’s, on his way to a leukemia treatment in Columbus. My dad really liked Wendy’s. He thought he had a quasi-business relationship with the chain because he had almost invested in Wendy’s — headquartered in Columbus — before the chain got big. Almost is the key word. My dad’s near-miss with Wendy’s always topped my uncles’ near-miss get-rich-quick chronicles at Passover Seders.

I sat at Vintage India Restaurant on Detroit Avenue in Lakewood recently, thinking about my dad. My dad bought the building – not the restaurant, the building – decades ago. My family still owns the building. My dad died in 1986. I’m pretty sure Toby never ordered saag paneer in his life. Haagen Dazs, yes, but not saag paneer.

Vintage India is nothing special to look at. It has big plate-glass windows facing Detroit, and a laminate floor and drop-ceiling tiles. Bland decor, good food. The owners Ram and Shakuntla Lal do the cooking and their two adult children are servers. The son studies pre-med at Cleveland State University, and the daughter does nursing. The restaurant space, in previous iterations, was a medical-supply house, mattress store, office-supply house, furniture store and a video rental outlet called Cinema Transit. None of the businesses got the foot traffic of Vintage India. I counted more than 20 diners, plus a line of take-out customers, on a recent Saturday night.

Theodore “Toby” Stratton (1917-1986). 1985 photo.

My dad knew something about restaurants and food. His immigrant mother became a part-owner of Seiger’s deli at East 118th Street and Kinsman Road, and she also ran a mom-and-pop candy store further east on Kinsman Road. One of my dad’s childhood laments was that he couldn’t try out for the track team at John Adams High School because he had to work in the candy store after school.

“Financial security” was my dad’s watchword. He started early. One summer, he worked at Cedar Point, selling corned beef sandwiches on the beach. That’s the same beach where Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne supposedly developed the forward pass. It would be great if Cedar Point put up a plaque for my dad, maybe something with wording like, “Toby’s favorite food was a good piece of rye bread.” Chocolate phosphates were a close second.

At Ohio State University, Toby lived in the Tower Club, a scholarship dorm in a wing of the stadium. It was a bunch of guys on cots in a big room. Toby majored in chemistry and made Phi Beta Kappa. After college, he had a lot of different jobs – none of them in chemistry. The chemical industry wasn’t hiring a lot of Jews when he graduated in 1938. He eventually wound up – 27 years later — a real estate investor. He put down 8% on the Vintage-India-Restaurant-to-be building in 1965 and “carried paper,” meaning he had first and second mortgages. He loved leverage.

If my dad is reincarnated, I hope he and I go to Vintage India. Toby will definitely appreciate the Lal family’s hustle and drive. I’ll advise my dad to stick to “1” on the 1-to-10 spiciness chart. The food at Vintage India food is hot, and my dad was a Wendy’s guy.