Ear on Chicago; Two Tureens of Turtle Soup: Allgauers Restaurant

To tell the story of one of Chicago's great restaurants, we have gone to Algawers at 7200 Lincoln Avenue, where two guests have just arrived and have ordered lunch. We will meet first Leo Olson, who greets the customers at the door. Now, Mr. Olson, I'd like to explain to you, sir, that the guests sat down just a moment ago and ordered the following, green turtle soup, a lobster tail, American fried potatoes, chopped combination salad, a thousand island dressing, coffee and a dessert. Now, what I would like to find out is in which order this will be brought out, I assume that the appetizer or the soup will be brought first. That is correct. How does the waiter go about this? Does he have to set the table for certain orders? For example, in this one, he has to make sure that he has to have the right utensils for soup. That is very important to have the right utensils at all times, not only for turtle soup, but for anything that a gentleman would like to order. Now, what would come next on this order? Well, the next thing would be brought in would be the salad. And then? And then the main course, the

entree. And of course, after that would be the coffee and dessert. That is correct. He would have his dessert later. They have a choice here of a number of things. For example, they have a choice of potatoes and a choice of salads and so on. Do you find that most people order, for example, a combination salad or they pretty much varied here? Well, it varies quite a bit. They generally seem to prefer the salads more than vegetables or potatoes. Well, I know that you are busy right now, Mr. Olson. I didn't want to call you aside just briefly for that piece of information. That is a very interesting part of our story. And I see that we've already have a number of guests gathered here at the door. You're going to have to see them. Thank you very much. Thank you for talking to us, sir. Following our interview with Mr. Leo Olson, the dining room manager, we're going to go back in time just a little bit. Our story picks up where Ms. McDonald, the hostess, received the order from our guests. The man and his wife who ordered luncheon.

They gave the order to Ms. McDonald and she, in turn, gave it to a waiter. The waiter then goes to the kitchen with his order and writes it up. Now, we are in the kitchen now, as you can probably tell, by the background sounds. We're going to talk to Mr. Harry Algawer, who is executive assistant of Algawer's restaurant. He is also the son of Mr. Gustaf Algawer, the owner. Now, Harry, we have our order here and we have given it to you. I assume that you will act the part of a waiter for us right now. All right, yes, that's what I'll do. Now, I've taken the order from Ms. McDonald and I'm doing what a waiter would do. The first thing he would do is write the order up on the back of his check. So he knows what to do when he picks it up and where to go. All right, now our order, as I remember it, was two orders of turtle soup. Yes, two two lobster tails and so on. That's right. Two terrains of turtle soup and as an entree, they had two lobster tails and had two sails with thousand island dressing. And they also had two orders of American fry potatoes. All right, now, assuming that you have this written up, you as a waiter

would do what? Now, I write up in front of my check two lobster tails, Alacart, and I would hand this to me, may our checker here. That's right over here. Yes, and me would ring it up. All right, and that check? And I would leave the check with her and go over to the chef, first of all, the chef here, and punch in on the time clock. That sound was the sound of the time clock being punched on this check. Yes, now I would hand the order over to the chef. All right, now the chef has it. The chef's name is Max Ludike. Now we're going to listen to Max. I'll explain this after he announces it. Owing, owing, two turtles, two turtles, two lobster tails, two lobster tails. Now, Max has just spoken into a

microphone over here, Harry, and we heard it over the loud speaker. This is a very unique system if I've ever seen one. Something that I assume that most restaurants don't have. Yes, that's correct. Now, the object of this is, as the chef explained you before, as we don't want our waiters and waitresses talking to our cooks, that takes away their attention from what they're doing. Each man has a different job to do and has various station to take care of. Well, now let me talk to Max just a minute here. Max, when you ordered, for example, the turtle soup, I noticed down here that a couple of boys just threw up their hand. Are those the fellas that are primarily concerned with the soup dishes? Yes. The whole kitchen is divided up in stations, starting with the second cook station, which takes care of stews and soups and things like that. Then it goes down to the roast cook station, to the cook that sautees the fish, to the fried cook that

fries oysters and clams and stuff like that. Then you come to the fish broiler, the steak broiler, and so on down their pantry, to the cold meat man. All these boys, they listen to these orders, they have the mind on these orders, they don't hear the other fellows orders, only their own. And then they turn around, prepare the order, put it up, and when the waitress is ready, all they take it off the stove, when I say pick up so -and -so, two turtle soup, the hand, the waitress, two turtle soup, pick up two lobster tail when they're ready. We know exactly when they must be ready, because you have already punched the time on your slip. When the order is ready, we'll give it to the waitress, and so it goes out. Nothing is forgotten, nothing is cooked too long, or not enough, we know exactly how long the order's been here, and whether it is ready or whether it's not ready. Max, that's a real efficient operation, believe me. Thank you. Well, Harry, let's get back to our order here. We still have to worry about getting this

food out. One thing we didn't mention so far was the salad. Where is that prepared? That's over here in our pantry, where our pantry man always keeps up maybe a half dozen or a dozen salads, depending on how business is at the time, so that the waiter wages can just reach, pick up the salad, and go over here and put on the type of dressing to customer desires. Well, now, Harry, we have the order already placed, and the boys are preparing the soup and the salad. Now, what happens now? You're the waiter. Thank you. It's been about five minutes now, so the turtle soup should be ready. It just has to be heated up because it's already been prepared, so I'm going to take my tray now from over here. All right, Harry, the waiter here, has his tray. He's walking over to the chef's table. I've come over to the chef here, and I'm going to say I'm picking up on the turtle soup. All right. He got two turtle soup, two. All right. Now, meanwhile, I'm walking. I'm going to walk over here to the pantry and pick up my two salads.

All right, Harry is walking over. He dropped his tray. Here are the salads. I picked up the two salads, and now he's bringing his tray over here. Harry, what happens now? I'm going to get the dressing on him. One has French dressing. The other has Thousand Island dressings, so I'm going to put the individual dressings right on the salads. All right, fine. Harry is doing that now, putting the dressing on the salads. Salas are now being moved over here again to the chef's table. Now, I'm walking over now and pick up the two terrains of turtle soup. All right, let's go over there with him. That's about 15 feet away. Here at the counter are two terrains of turtle soup. All right, I've handed the cook my two terrains here, and which he's placed the turtle soup. I'm picking them up, and I'm bringing them on my tray. All right, that's at least that much done. He has the soup, and the salad is on a tray. Now what, Harry? Now I'm going to come over here to May, May be our checker, and she will check my order here to see that's correct against my

check. All right, let's listen to that cash register cling here. You have to cut the turtle soup there. You've got your wine with your soup there, and I see two salads, a Thousand Island dresser. Now you'll get one, two ladles here for this soup. May I have this flip there? Oh, all right, I have it there. All right, I'm signing my slip for the two ladles. Each waiter waiters responsible for any extra utensils he picks up here at the desk, such as steak knives or ladles, which I need here for the two terrains of turtle soup. And I sign my number and sign for the ladles and give it to May. And then I walk out to the door to the dying room and serve my salads and my turtle soup. All right, Harry, let's get back over here with you now. You're still the waiter, and we'll let's assume that the guests have completed their turtle soup and their salads. They prepare it now for the entree. How does that come about? All right, now the lobster tail takes 20 minutes to prepare.

And it was five, took five minutes to heat up the turtle soup. So another 15 minutes after the turtle soup is served. Well, by the time I get out there, say, the 13 minutes or whatever it is, that's where a waiter or a waitress has to use timing. I come back here and my lobster tail will be ready. Harry, before while we're waiting for that to be prepared, the lobster tail, I'd like to ask you just a couple of questions about the kitchen, and I'd like to record some of the sounds. Particularly because this particular show lends itself to sounds, anybody that is familiar with the operation of a restaurant knows that there are many sounds. For example, I understand, or I can see right in front of me over here, that you're cooking French fries. I'd like for the listening audience just to hear some of the sounds of French fries cooking. You could almost smell them on the air. Hope that doesn't melt the microphone. It's getting a little warm over here. Yeah,

it's strong background noise, you'll hear our exhaust to our blowers here. And I hope that hasn't drowned out too much of that sound. Here's Max preparing something over here. Max, what are you putting on? This is Dover Soul, an English soul. We call it a Dover Soul in our Pollen's Kitchen Pollen's. I'll put it on the pan for you. Let's hear it. Oh, that looks good, Max. Is that especially the house? Yeah, that's our specialty. You specialize in Dover Soul and all, as a matter of fact, all fish dishes. Just a little warmer out here, too. Well, once in a while, but you can use to that. Yes. Up above, there looks like some meat pies, Harry. Yes, that's chicken pot pie that was served on the luncheon today. And next to it, some baked potatoes. Yes, sir. Over here, what? Those are our potato pancakes. That was also served on the luncheon. What about this big drum over here?

That's soup. That's our navy bean soup, which was on the luncheon today. And that's what's also on the dinner. That's the soup of the day. Max, I'd like for you to come over here just a minute and talk to me briefly about some of the ways in which you order this food. Now, Harry and I have been talking about a lot of foods here. Potatoes, meat pies, the order of the special of the day, and french fries, and things like that. But behind it all, there has to be an order of food, and there has to be an order of a lot of food. That's right. How do you know, for example, on a day like today, how much to order? Today was a particularly busy day. Well, we generally don't know exactly, but we have records of former days, and we try to strike a good average. And of course, there's always, we always can prepare a little more when we see the houses filling up. And that's the way we have to, it's rather guesswork, more or less, but then complicated guesswork. Yes, it is. If you figure out all these

raw materials have to be ordered as much as five and six days ahead of time, especially foods that we receive direct from these coasts, like fresh lobsters, and fresh soft -child crabs, and fresh crab meats, and those things, they naturally have to be ordered six and seven days ahead of time. So they arrive here, fresh at the time we want them. How many men do you have working with you here, Max? Well, if you mean actual cooks, about 15 or 18, that includes watches and bakers, and kitchen personnel all together, including dishwashers and so on, runs close to 60 men. Well, Max, we want to thank you very much for helping us tell the story of the kitchen. It's of course the most important part of the restaurant business. That's where it's all prepared. Believe me, I know from eating out at Algarz that it's very

tasty food, and you've felt us do a magnificent job. Harry, Max, mentioned the dishwashing boys, and that's the next step I'd like to go to while we're still waiting. So why don't we step over there? All right, let's do that. Well, Harry, as we're walking over here to the dishwashers, I'd like to interrupt once again. I'm afraid we're going to have to bring Max into the picture again. I know he's busy, especially at this rush hour. But I'd like to ask him a little bit about some of the specialties of the house. Now, you have one right in front of you, is that right? Yes, so you see the cook right there, he's getting our shrimp alga already, which is alga was answered to the shrimp de zheng. Max, come over here and tell us about the answer to the shrimp de zheng. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this is a little adaption that we made of shrimp de zheng. Some people tell us it's better than shrimp de zheng, and we like to believe it is better. But I don't know, you have to eat the pudding in order to tell whether it's better or not. Well, maybe later on, I'll try a little bit, but let

me first of all describe the fact that there's a cook preparing some shrimps in a small terrain. And on top of the shrimps, he is placing something that always a sort of a green color with little dots of darker green inside. What is that? Well, this is shrimp butter, making it like baloney, by the way, in slices. That's right, it's hard, it came out already ice box, it is like butter, and in this butter is garlic and several different kinds of herbs and spices that we keep to ourselves. We don't give away the actual traits, the trait secret there. Well, that looks very delightful even before it's cooked, but is it going to be cooked? Well, I hope to sell all of them, he's preparing about 50 of them for tonight, and I hope to sell all of them maybe a little more yet. And the same applies to our shrimp algorithm, and then we have an oyster,

oyster algorithm. Big oyster algorithm, we use the same butter for that, all specialties of the house. Max, where do these recipes come from? From your brain here? Well, there are old -time recipes, recipes that were used many years ago in the old country already, and these are just adaptions. Every chef has an idea of his own, and he adds a little to it, or takes a little off it, and that makes it different. That makes one house different than the other. Are you married, Max? Oh, yes. Who does the cooking at your house? My wife. Max, I understand also that you do all your own baking here. You bake your own... Yes, we do. Where is that done? That's right over here at the bakery. Oh, yes, we won't have time to go over there, but we can talk about it from here. All right. What do you prepare here? Right over here is preparing what they call a brioche de France, and it's a part of salt sticks. We use that for our dinner, exclusively. I don't think anybody else in the city makes anything like this anymore, because it requires

a lot of work. And we feel that we like to give our customers something extra special in the breakfast, besides the ordinary rolls and bread, and... How long have you been in the business, Max? Oh, I started when I was 14, and I'm 54 now. I didn't mean for you to give away your age, but that's a long time. If I can figure it out, that's 41 years. Yes, that's right, just about. Well, I didn't know we were going to bring you back into the program. As I said, you're very busy, and I know you want to get back to work. Once again, thanks a lot for telling us about some of the specialties here. Okay, thank you. Now, Harry, I think we can walk over here to the dishwasher. Well, we have arrived at the dishwasher department, and Harry, it's a rather large one. It looks like some of that I've seen in the army, and we had some big messes in the army. Yeah, I wasn't in the army, too. Here's Tony Tarenalski, he's our steward, and along with his assistant steward, they do the buying, and they also have the dishwasher department

under their wing here. The assistant steward's name, we better give him a mention. Yes, that's Freddie, Freddie Brown. Okay, Tony, let me ask you just a few questions about the dishwasher operation. First of all, how many boys do you have working in here? Right now, we have about eight. Now, this has been a heavy luncheon today, Tony. How many, well, for example, how many dishes did you wash? About 5 ,000 plates alone. 5 ,000? That's correct. And how about silverware? Silver about 2 ,500 pieces. And cups? Cups, well, cups about 500 cups. And glasses? Glasses about 2 ,000 glasses. Well, that's a fantastic operation for that many boys, but everything is automatic, it looks like. That is correct. Well, now, tell us briefly about how it's done. This dish washing operation certainly is an important one in the restaurant business, as the dishes are brought in, how does it work? We firstly scrape our dishes. Then they go through what we call a pre -wash machine. Then it goes through a triple operation. First there's a wash, then there's a rinse, and then we

also have what we call a rinse dry operation here. One, our dishes come out to practically dry after the hot water hits them to practically dry. And then finally, placing them away. But in a more way, we have a regular man, that's all he does is go back through, put some more where they belong. So the waiter then comes and picks them up again for us? That makes me happy. To be reused again, that's right. Well, it's very efficient, Tony. That's right. By the way, you do the buying, too. We talked to Max briefly about how he purchases the food, but you're the man that actually does the buying. I do the buying and also the receiving, sir. I see. All right, Tony. Thanks a million for talking to us. Thank you. Well, now Harry, it's been about 15 minutes, I think. And I suppose it's about time to go back and pick up our entree, the lobster tail. Yes, I think that's what we should do right now. Imagine the guest by now is ready for it. So let's go back there. Harry, now we've reached again the chef's table and you're ready to pick up your entree. Yes, now I'm going to punch it back into time stock again. And this shows it's been exactly 21 minutes. 21 minutes, right. All right, pick

up two lobster tail, two. All right, now I'm going over here and pick up my tray again. Get set up. Harry has the tray and has put it on a table over here, a stainless steel table. Now, meanwhile, I'm going to get some parsley and some lemon for the lobster tail. We serve parsley on all our entrees here. All right, now we have it and bring it over here. Now just time I arrived here, the cook has the lobster tail ready and I've placed them on my tray, put my covers on top of them. Now I'm coming over here and picking up my American fries. Oh, yes, we have, we can't forget the potatoes. They've got two American fries. I have my American fries and I have my order completed. Now back over here to me, let's be checked out again. Here we

go. John butter, trying to hear potatoes. Okay, let's go. How about your coffee? You want a later? They wish their coffee later. Okay, Harry, that's it, isn't it? Yes, that's it. Now after this is served, I would, and they're finished. I would bring them their coffee and they're dessert. And the final thing, Harry, is when the customer pays. And in a few minutes, you'll have to. Yes, our policy is here, is we want our waiters or waitresses to pay the checks in for the customer. If he wishes to pay it himself, he can. But our customers appreciate this little courtesy of paying into check form and making their change form and saving them the embarrassment of having to get their own change and perhaps coming back and leaving a tip for the waiter waitress. Well, I can understand that and I think anybody that is eaten out can too. It's sometimes rather embarrassing to have to go up to the cashier and then back to the table. Well, Harry, we want to thank you very much for helping us out and being our guide and

acting as a waiter. And General, overall, coconut bottle washer here for us on the program. But it's helped us a great deal in explaining to the people how Algar's restaurant is operated. And this is typically a Chicago restaurant on the suburbs and it's one of the finest. And we want to thank you again for allowing us to go through the entire restaurant and seeing the operation. And now we'd like to go into your father's office and talk to him just briefly about some of his background and experience in the restaurant business. All right, thank you very much. We are now in the office of the owner of Algar's restaurant at 7200 Lincoln, Mr. Gustaf Algar. Now here is a story I think that we are going to have to tell if we tell the story of Algar restaurant. Because obviously the story is Gustaf Algar. And everybody knows him throughout the United States as Gus. Mr. Algar, I like to tell for you to tell us the story of your life. We'll make it this is your life, Mr. Algar, for the moment. Because the story of this restaurant certainly is wrapped up in you and your family.

How did this all start? When did you first get into the restaurant business? Well, I came over here in 1923 and I was ambitious in New York. That's where I started in the field. You started as a dishwasher? Yes, sir. And how did you finally get into Chicago? Well, I didn't like the East, so I went to the Middle West. And ended in Chicago? And ended in Chicago and I liked Chicago very much and I stayed. Now where did you first start your own restaurant? My own restaurant, I started on Block Street and the 2900 block on Block Street. What year was that? Or about 1934. And what was the name of that restaurant? The New Century Cafe. The New Century Cafe. And then what happened? Well, later on we lost the New Century Cafe down. It was a two, it was a place where just the wife and I and my two more employees worked. And we couldn't make any money there, so we shut it down. And we bought the Black Forest Restaurant in 1939. Where was the Black Forest located? Black Forest Restaurant was in 2638

not -block. Now how long did you have the Black Forest before you decided to move to the suburbs? I had the Black Forest for eight years. For eight years? Yes, sir. And then what happened? Well, I sold the Black Forest because I've done a driving business day, a very good business, but I sold out because I've seen that we're going to make a lot of cars, millions of them. And I could see that there's no parking space available. So I went into the country and opened up my rich avenue place in 6666 Rich Avenue. That place is still in business? Yes, I got that place in almost 10 years. And I acquired a lot of parking space where I could park all the cars of all the customers and my employees. Now since you started the place at 6666 Rich, of course, the one at 7200 Lincoln, where we're doing the story today, was built. Now, when did that happen? Five and a half years ago. I bought the fireside at what they called at that time, the fireside restaurant.

And then you build it up, of course. It's much bigger than it was in those days. It's much bigger. Has more parking space. I got a lot of land. And it's today one of the most beautiful places in the world, not only in this country. Now, Mr. Algar, you have mentioned something when you talked about moving out to the country to get parking space that is of primary interest to this program because a restaurant business is located in two places in a loop area such as downtown Chicago and in the suburban area. Now, how are people eating out nowadays? Are they going mostly to suburban restaurants or are they going down to the loop? Apparently from your business, because it's so popular out here, they're eating mostly in the suburbs. Well, obviously, people only go down to the loop if they want to take in a nice show or something like that or go shopping. But I don't think they go down the loop, especially for dinner. Because we here in the suburban areas, we got the parking space available where they have a card in the loop. Is this something that was originated with you, Mr. Algar, going to the suburbs, so if you get parking space,

I know that all back in those days, they were beginning to think about shopping areas and getting away from downtown and moving out into the suburbs so that you could have parking space. It was a new idea in merchandising. Was this a new idea in the restaurant business? Well, I think there is no restaurants in Chicago has as much pocket speed as I have. I think I'll pay a near dollar, right? Yes, I believe that's probably true. Well, what about the restaurant business today? What do you see for the future of it? Are there going to be some changes made or is it going to stay just about the way it is? Well, with the standard of living going up continuously, more people can afford to go out neat. And in our places, they get better beef, better meats, then the housewife can buy in any store. And the housewives don't like to cook fish, because it kind of smells up the house. And

when we're having always fresh fish and hand, I think it's better for the easier for the housewives to go out and enjoy themselves once in a while. Well, I'm glad that you said that because the restaurant business is certainly one of the greatest and largest businesses I understand it in the United States. And certainly, people love to get out and eat. And when they go to a place like Algares, they can appreciate that such men as you have been very successful in this line of work. We want to thank you very much sir for talking to us and allowing us to take a tour of this marvelous restaurant. Thank you very much, a bunch of Rosemain. And that's the story of one of Chicago's most famous restaurants, Algares. This is Hugh Hill Speaking.