>For
>reasons which are obscure to outsiders and even many Avalonians,
>virtually every one of the city's many Tastee-Freez locations that
>isn't in a Wienerschnitzel is in a Chinese restaurant, by virtue of
>which said restaurants also sell Big T burgers and fries along with
>their more traditional offerings.Oh yeah, I forgot to include the explanation of where this comes from. It's a reference to an odd thing that happened around where I live. I should start by explaining, for those who aren't familiar with it, that Tastee-Freez was a chain of restaurants offering classic American drive-in fare—burgers, French fries, a range of deep-fried items (fried clams were a popular thing at the ones here in Maine), along with various desserts based on soft-serve ice cream (which was their trademark, hence the name). They were similar to Dairy Queens, but less modern-fast-food and more '50s-drive-in style. They used to be one of the biggest chains in the country, and while there are still a few of them scattered around, they're quite rare now; as far as I can tell, mostly the trademark is used for the ice cream they sell at Wienerschnitzel hot dog joints. (Fun fact: Wienerschnizel restaurants don't serve Vienna schnitzel, which is a breaded veal cutlet.)
Anyway, when I was a kid, there was a Tastee-Freez in the little town over by the Interstate, 12 miles or so from here. It was run by a nice old couple who closed up shop and went to Florida every winter, and my parents (along with a good many other people in the region) would eagerly look forward to their return every spring. I have many fond memories of eating dinner in the back seat of our old Caprice, being careful to save room for ice cream.
When I was in high school, the old couple decided it was time to retire, but rather than close the place down, they sold out to a Vietnamese family who lived not far from us. They converted the Tastee-Freez into a Chinese restaurant—but it was also still a Tastee-Freez. Which meant you could rock up and get a burger and some chicken fried rice, a Coke, and a banana split. That was almost unfathomably cosmopolitan as dining experiences in late-1980s rural Maine went, and it was my and my high school crew's favorite place for years.
Sadly, not long after I moved back to the area in the early 2000s, the matriarch of the family retired and left the place in the hands of her daughter, whose local-born husband decided that what the region really needed was another bar, not an awesome Chinese restaurant-cum-Tastee-Freez. They made a gesture toward preserving the restaurant by adding a wing onto the bar with some seating and keeping part of the kitchen open, but the Tastee-Freez franchise and all its equipment went, and the magic was lost. A few years later, part of the building burned down and they never reopened. I pass by the site on the way to and from the Interstate—so basically all the time—and it still makes me a little bit melancholy.
Which is why there are Tastee-Freez Chinese restaurants in New Avalon. It's a cultural feature, the kind of thing that turns up in articles about going there in the tourism sections of other places' newspapers.
--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.