"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
No one ever knew why Dante's immortal words were blazoned in gothic script over the enormous oaken doors of this Teutonic Olney caravanserai, but they were. The "In place for the In crowd" from the roaring 20's through the swinging 60's and well into the dark unnameable years beyond, the Schwarzwald fed good wholesome steaks, chops, saurbraten, sausages, potatoes and kraut to both high and low. Featuring sterling entertainment every night but Tuesday, some Schwarzwald regulars are profiled in our series "Legends of the Schwarzwald".
4 comments:
I worked there as a busboy from 1976-1977 the food was down home deutchisch. Anna would tear through the dining room checking the silver and starched white table cloths. I can't recall any singing during that era.
Dear Anon,
Our Schwarzwald Inn is a Schwarzwald Inn that should have been.
I worked the Schwarzwald Inn around 1977 with a bunch of my friends from the neighborhood.We worked Sunday afternoons into the evening.
If you worked the kitchen you started on the huge pots and pans and worked your way up to dishwasher.Luckily a friend came after me and I graduated to dishes We had some much fun exploring the place stealing beer, trading beer to the cooks for lobster tails and prime rib.
Anna was omnipresent and kept you on your toes. We would smuggle out some of their beer mugs in our jackets and use them for keg parties at blackrock.
The best part was your dinner break where we would go to basement where they had private parties and eat a full meal.(They had the best snapper soup). We would listen to the radio and when I hear "Too Rolling Stoned" by Robin Trower I think of those days.
One night when we were all walking out for the night Anna gave us our checks(for something like $21.57 for 8 hrs work) and said "Who banged the lock on the locker" We all looked at each other and laughed at the absurdity of the statement and wondered what she was on about. We found out the next week that someone had broken into a liquor cabinet and demolished the lock. Now we weren't exactly angels but this beyond the pale for us.( I personally had given up the hard stuff when as a 98 lb freshman at CDHS drank a 1/3 of a fifth of V.O.. Just the smell made me sick for years.) But I digress.
Anna brought this guy in to talk to the kitchen staff of dish, pot washers and busboys. He was a skinny old guy in his 60's with a plaid jacket,stripped pants,bow tie and a bad helmet you could spot on the passing #26 bus.
He gathered us around on a table and told us he was a cop and was investigating the break in of the aformentioned liquor cabinet. He said "he was gonna get to the bottom of this and we would be glad when they dragged the culprit out the door" I felt like Col. Mustard in the drawing room with the candlestick.
We knew none of us had done it but one of the busboys had been acting suspeciously the prior week. We all just stared at him and said nothing. He was soon gone in the coming weeks. I think I remember his name but he'll just have to remain "Anonymous",,,I'm just saying,,,
Dear Anon #2, thanks so much for your comment, which is worthy of a post in and of itself! Beautiful...
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