The Surf

by John B. Anderson

The Surf restaurant was a dream of George Babladellis. George and his brothers Pete and Louie operated The Liberty Cafe in downtown Manistique for many years. George and Louie handled the kitchen while Pete and his chewed-up cigar, took care of the customers out front. We kids always hit The Liberty after a football or basketball game for a burger and french fries with gravy. The food and the service at The Liberty were great, but George's dream was to create the finest restaurant in the U.P.

…..and he did. The Surf was located about a mile east of Manistique on U.S.2. I became interested in The Surf when friend, Clifford, told me that we would be getting jobs as valets, parking cars for The Surf customers. Wow! For a couple of 12-year-olds, these were the best of all jobs. Clifford said that the valet jobs were a sure thing, as Clifford's dad worked at The Surf. (I found out later that Clifford's dad removed the garbage from The Surf twice a week.)

I didn't hear anything about the jobs for quite a while. My mom served as dining room hostess at The Surf during the next summer. She had asked George about the valet jobs, and the sad news was that there were no jobs of that kind available, nor were there any planned. They did, however, have an opening for a dishwasher, so I decided to take that. Prof. Olson gave me a work permit, so I started washing dishes the next night. My first night was tough, as I was too shy to ask for a break from the dishes to get something to eat. Kay Bowles, one of the dining room waitresses, told George to send me home, as I was sick. The next night, I wasn't so shy.

George ran the operation my first couple of years of working there. His wife, Stella, was hostess and cashier in the grill. The two sons, Nat and Nick joined the management team later. Nat had been christened, Ignacious Babladellis, but he shortened his name to Nat Dellis. Nick also shortened the last name. Nat took over a lot of the paperwork, freeing up George to concentrate on the kitchen functions. Eventually, the Babladellis family purchased the other two fine restaurants in the U.P., The Knife and Fork at the Sault, and the Chalet in Marquette. Nick spent most of his time at the Knife and Fork.

Most of the patrons were tourists. We didn't get much town trade during the summer. Buck Williams, from The Breakers Motel down the street, would stop by in the evenings to have a drink with Nat in the bar. The Surf was comprised by six rooms: The grill, which served breakfast, lunch, and less expensive supper, the bar, two dining rooms, the prep kitchen and the main kitchen. Smaller rooms included the office, two walk-in freezers, two walk-in coolers, and two bathrooms.

If you were to stop for dinner at The Surf, you were in for a real treat. The cocktail bar was well stocked, so you could order just about anything to drink and expect to get it. Next came George's famous hot hor d'ourve of barbecue meatballs. This was followed by the most magnificent salad bar that I had ever seen. The salad bar included a mixed green salad, salad fixings, pickled peaches, pickled crab apples, cottage cheese, 3 pasta salads, mixed pickles, along with other items. Next came the bread basket, including heated dinner rolls, garlic bread, and bread sticks, all freshly made by Ester Bloomquist, the baker. (Ester became head chef later, but that's another part of the story.) One of three homemade soups was also served at this time.

The dining room menu was eight pages. It included:

Beef Pork and Lamb: Club steak, Sirloin steak, T-bone steak, (looked like porterhouse to me), sirloin tips , (featured in “Ford Times” magazine), shish-ka-bob, Prime rib, Pork chops, Lamb chops and Leg of lamb. I discovered why we served mint jelly with the leg of lamb. Lamb tastes horrible.

Fish and Sea Food: Fresh White fish and Lake trout from King's in Naubinway. Lobster, scallops, and shrimp from the ocean.

Chicken and other Fowl: Pan-fried chicken, Cornish hen, Brandy chicken, and Duck.

Sides included baked, mashed, and french-fried potatoes.

The grill breakfast menu was pretty traditional. A single egg required either three pieces of bacon or sausage, two eggs would require four pieces of each. Eggs were any style, scrambled, sunny-side up, over easy, boiled and poached. We saved our bacon grease in which we cooked our eggs, (except for Mrs. Babladellis' eggs, which were cooked in olive oil). We also served waffles and pancakes. The Surf Breakfast included three pancakes, wrapped around grape jelly, topped by two strips of bacon.

The grill lunch and supper menu included chicken salad and tuna salad plates, a fisherman's platter with whitefish, shrimp and scallops, and assorted sandwiches The hamburgers were especially good, as they were made from beef round and fat scraps from the dining room steaks. We had tuna fish, egg salad, fried egg, and ham salad sandwiches We also served a club sandwich, a three-decker with chicken bacon, tomato, lettuce, and mayo.

I hated making that club sandwich. At the end of my first summer as a dishwasher, I asked George if he would teach me to cook. He said, “Sure. Come in on the weekends, and we'll teach you. Weekend cooking in the Fall was different from the summer cooking. Most of our customers were old people, touring the peninsula looking at the colors. Old people love club sandwiches I made so many club sandwiches that Fall, that I decided that I hated old people.

Some of the people that I worked with over the seven years at The Surf included Babe Garvin, Vickie Herlik, (Vickie used to sneak me cokes from the grill),Ruth and Sue Olson from the grill. Kay Bowles, Fran Bernard, Nancy Klagstad, Kathy Reed, Cerona Christensen, Lorna LaVance, Kay Atherton, Jimmy Chartier, John Herlik, Ralph Miller, and Donny Russel from the dining room. One one occasion, we sprayed for bugs in the kitchen after all the meals had been served for the evening. John, the busboy, came into the kitchen and remarked, “It smells like mothballs in here.”

Fran, (who wouldn't say it if she had a mouthful,) “Gee, Johnny, I didn't know that you could get their tiny legs that far apart to smell.”

Ester was our baker, none better in Manistique. She make all the pies, breads, sweet rolls, dinner rolls and breadsticks. Ester's sweet rolls were so good, I used to eat them when I took inventory in the walk-in freezer. One evening, the boss came to us and said, “Ester you're now the head chef and John, you're the sous chef.” The three cooks whom the boss had hired from Michigan State Restaurant program, came in drunk that day, and were immediately fired.

So....Ester was the baker, then head chef, then baker, Tommy Dufour was head chef, then transferred to The Chalet in Marquette. Beverly Rogers worked the grill side in the evening, Vivian Miller, Jim Miller and I worked the breakfast and lunch crowd in the grill. Sometimes I worked in the evenings as well. One evening, someone left the pork loin out on the meat saw. It had become sweaty and slippery. I had to cut two chops, but my hand slipped and my knuckle went into the saw blade. Bill followed me around with a mop to clean up the blood, until someone could take me to the clinic to get stitched up. After the stitches, I went back to work to finish my shift.

Every Spring, we would get a huge shipment of canned goods from John Sexton Company in Chicago. Sexton's, at the time, were of the finest quality. About the same time, Armour would ship us barrels of beef ribs packed in dry ice. The dry ice was always fun to play with. Our regular supplier of meat was the Swift Company, again, out of Chicago. There was no bridge, then, so most of our supplies came from Chicago or Milwaukee. Local suppliers included Harold from the Cloverland Creamery, Lionel Tyrrell from Bunny Bread, and King's who brought the fish. The produce came from Escanaba.

Nat assigned me to take inventory every month. I would put on George's ratty old green sweater to count and weigh the meat in the freezers. Each beef rib had to be weighed and counted. The two coolers weren't quite so bad. We kept two large bins in the cooler, one for steak scraps for the hamburger, and one for other meat scraps for the meatballs. I weighed all the open booze bottles in the bar, figuring an liquid ounce of liquid equaled an ounce on the scale. I counted all of the cans of dry food in the basement storage area, as well as all of the full bottles of whiskey, which were locked in the liquor closet. There was one open bottle of tequila in the liquor closet. I thought that I would try that one day as I was taking inventory. I took a big swig, choked it down and ran for the stairs. We had no running water in the basement. When I got upstairs, I threw my head under the faucet and turned on the cold water to stop the burning. Ester said, “I see that you found the tequila!”

When Nat joined us, he had just finished his stint in the army. He was proficient in the culinary arts, so the army put him in charge of a squad of tanks. He had kept his sidearm, a .45, so we practiced with it on slow afternoons. Lots of fun. A couple of times during the summer, after closing time, Nat and I stripped the tile floors in the grill, the bar and the kitchen. We usually finished between 2:00 am and 3:00 am, then went to breakfast.

Nat said that he would help with my college expenses, if I had chosen to attend the Hotel and Restaurant Management School at Michigan State. I elected, instead, to accept a scholarship at the University of Chicago. That ended my career at The Surf, so I took a job working for a French chef at Atlantic City the next summer. I am forever appreciative of all that I learned at the U.P.'s finest restaurant.