Old Customers Are The Best Kind

My first restaurant was called the Iron Gate House. It was on the corner of 36th Street and Atlantic Avenue in Virginia Beach, Virginia. That was half a lifetime ago so my memory of it might be suspect.

A month ago I received an email from Mr. Ken Rhodes. He was an old customer and had visited us several times back in the day. He mentioned several other small fine dining spots of that time but he wanted to know about the history of the Iron Gate House in particular as it was his favorite. His email ended up in my spam folder but I check that folder every now and then just in case something legitimate ends up in there. You can't be too careful these days with all the scams and crazies out there. After a little research, it appeared that Mr. Rhodes was the real deal. This is my reply to him. 

Ken,

From your email, I understand you want to know about the history of the opening of Iron Gate House. It’s a complicated story and one I wrote a semi-autographical novel about. It’s 240 pages so I will give you a shorter more truthful account (in a novel you can’t let the truth get in the way of a good story).

I went to college at East Carolina University in Greenville NC in the late 60’s and early 70’s. There I worked at a restaurant waiting tables and bartending. I came from a poor family and needed money to live while pursuing my higher education. I got out in 1971 and went to live with a fraternity brother in Virginia Beach. There I secured a job waiting tables at the Copper Kettle Restaurant at the Hilton. In 1972 I met Mel “Rat” Cliborne who was also working at the Copper Kettle. He had just returned from a winter in Aspen CO and was enamored with skiing. He talked it up and we decided to go to Vermont. The restaurant business at the Beach slowed drastically during the winter. In essence we became beach bums in the summer and ski bums in the winter. We did this for 3 years. At Mt. Snow in Vermont, we worked waiting tables. Rat worked at Snow Lake Lodge, and I worked at the Inn at Sawmill Farm. At the Sawmill, I was hired to take people’s day off, one day I was the bartender, one day I was the host, and three days I was a waiter. At the Sawmill, we also had to work breakfast, so they wouldn’t let us work more than 5 days a week. It was a small family run inn. With the winter weather situation, occasionally a cook wouldn’t show up so I would pitch in and help. I found out I was pretty good at it and really enjoyed the "back of the house" work. That summer instead of going back to Virginia Beach, we worked the summer in New Hope PA at the Golden Pheasant Inn, another small operation. There too, occasionally cooks wouldn’t show up and we pitched in.

In 1974, we returned to Virginia Beach and worked at the newly opened Orion’s Roof at the New Cavalier Hotel. It was a lot larger than the small inns I had been working in and had a lot of tableside service. Rat and I knew tableside service from the other places we had worked so we fit right in. It was here that I met Sherrill, my first wife. We started dating and found we had a lot in common. In the fall, I went to Vermont to work Foliage Season, I invited Sherrill up for a week, she ended up staying two. We fell in love in the colorful windswept mountains and started living together. We returned to Virginia Beach that summer. I heard that Orion’s Roof was looking for a manager, so I applied for the job. I got it. Sherrill and I ran the "front of the house" that summer. In the fall, the management of the hotel decided to close the restaurant for the winter, so I moved next door to the Ocean’s Club as assistant manager. I was hired by Mr. Willard Ashburn, a member of the Ocean’s Club. He also hired Peggy Powell as manager and David Cherry as chef. I’m not sure of how long the club had been around but it was fairly new to the complex of the Oceans Condominium Project. It had a lot of North End and Bay Colony residents as members. One in particular was Mr. David Danzinger. He taught me how to make crabcakes. The condominium had gone through a couple of different owners during construction and the initial sales campaign. At that time, it was being overseen by Mr. Wally Davies of Mortgage Investors of Washington. Wally had hired Jake Steele, who owned and operated an interior design and furniture company to furnish interior design options for the prospective owners. He had staged several of the condos as examples of different possibilities. Sherrill had been in sales (Real Estate) in Lynchburg prior to moving to the Beach after a divorce. She could sell ice to Eskimos. She went to work for Jake. All these people would play a pivotal role in the birth of The Iron Gate House.

There was a covered walkway that went from the condominium across Atlantic Avenue to the Club property. The club consisted of a small 50-seat dining room and offices on this upper level, a 75-seat bar area downstairs with a dance floor, a 200-seat dining room, Olympic size swimming pool, swim-up bar, sundeck, and cabanas, all right on the Ocean. The membership was quite a mix and several interesting situations occurred but that is a different story.

I worked at the Oceans from the fall of 1975 into 1976. On St. Patrick’s Day of 1976, Sherrill and I were married in Vermont at the small church in West Dover. Our marriage license was signed by a county clerk with the last name of Angel. Is anything sappier than that? We both continued to work at our jobs. During the summer Peggy Powell went to work at the Princess Anne CC and I became manager of the Oceans. Mr. Ashburn was a member of the Princess Ann as well and had arranged that. I should have known something was afoot. It appears that, as the sales of the condo units went up and new owners increased in numbers, the need for the club as an amenity just for the unit owners was going to be a necessity. Mortgage Investors of Washington forced the issue, and the club was kicked out as of January 1st 1977. The club had booked a number of holiday parties. Mr. Ashburn set it up that if David Cherry and I would stay and work them we could split the profits derived from them. During this same period, my old friend Rat had gone into business with a college buddy, Bob Venner, at the Captain’s Table Restaurant in the Schooner Hotel. This got me to thinking about doing the same thing. For most of the summer, since Friday nights were our slowest night, I gave David Cherry the night off. In the small dining room upstairs, I cooked themed 5 course dinners. I had garnered a following. For a long time, I had dreamed of owning my own restaurant. I was tired of watching owners make mistakes I would never make. I was 27 and arrogant. It was time to make a dream come true.

I had been driving past an old beach house that had been converted to retail on the corner of 36th Street and Atlantic Avenue for a few years. I noticed a for sale sign in front of the food shop there. I stopped by one day to investigate. The shop fit the bill for a small 50-seat restaurant (I needed at least 50 seats to get a liquor license). The owner was 82-year-old Sarah Wilson, and she lived in the house next door. I went to talk to her. I explained my dream to open a small restaurant serving a prix fixe 5-course dinner of classic dishes. In her younger days she had owned a guest house with a tearoom. This was back at a time when it was very rare for a woman to do this. For some reason she liked me and wanted to help. She made me a very reasonable deal on the rent, and we were off and running.

What we did in 1977, you could never do today. Now there is too much government involvement. Back then we flew by the seat of our pants. We didn’t pull any building permits. We did most of the work ourselves. The food shop was an already approved food facility, although in no way adequate for a real restaurant. They had a home stove and exhaust system which was perfect for the cookies, cakes, sauces and candies they prepared. That wasn’t going to work for a real restaurant. Sarah sensed we were going to need more space, so she provided us in addition to the food shop an additional bedroom, bathroom, and small porch area that she was leasing out on the first floor. This became our cold appetizer / salad / dessert prep area and small service bar area (the wait staff made their own drinks; we didn’t have a bartender). It also provided us with a men’s bathroom.

The whole building consisted of the food shop, that first floor apartment, 2 upstairs apartments and Sarah’s basement antique shop. We eventually took over half of her antique shop for our downstairs dining room and late-night spot. The food shop consisted of the original living room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen, storage room and the large side porch. We cut holes in walls, rewired, replumbed, plastered and painted (the walls were the old lathe and plaster with true 2x4 studs). The restaurant business sometimes requires an owner to be a bit more talented than just having food, service, and financial skills.

We had a very limited budget. It consisted of Sherrill’s and my meager savings account, the money from the holiday parties, the money we acquired from the sale of Sherrill’s 450 SL convertible and the kindness of friends and sometimes strangers.

Carlton Smart was a huge asset. He was a foodservice supplies and equipment salesman. I knew him from purchasing equipment at Orion’s Roof and the Oceans Club. Carlton obtained our flatware from the Oceana Officers Club; they were switching over from silverplate to stainless steel. We had no burnishing machine, we polished it all by hand, but we got it at no cost. He also personally cleaned and repaired a used 6-burner commercial stove which he provided at no cost. He also provided all our other supplies and equipment at a reasonable price, either new or slightly used. He got us in contact with the metal wizard who crafted our 10ft. stainless steel hood, the single most expensive piece of equipment we needed. It was at a reasonable price, but we joked that it was Sherrill’s 450 SL hanging up there in our kitchen. He provided the 3-compartment s/s sink and grease trap in the kitchen storeroom that became our dishwashing room. A room that had a view onto Atlantic Avenue and the beach. Initially, we couldn’t afford a dishwashing machine. We washed everything by hand.

Wally allowed us to borrow Royal Doulton dishware from the Oceans Club surplus stock. Sarah let us use some items from her antique shop. Jake Steele helped us get into auctions that provided us with our dining room chairs and sideboards. One of my customers from the Friday night dinners provided us with a sage bit of advice, “Don’t borrow money for a restaurant. Banks love to foreclose”. Rat was a bit of a green thumb and provided us with some plants for the porch area. He also turned us on to some of the suppliers he was using. Restaurant ownership is a fraternity often with more friendship than competitiveness. Our friends helped out with free labor, and we couldn’t have opened without them.

We accomplished this in 3 months and opened on St. Patrick’s Day 1977, on our wedding anniversary. Sherrill and I moved into an apartment overtop the restaurant. We were mentally and physically exhausted, but we had done it. Sherrill handled the front of the house, and I managed the back. I was the chef. Now you are asking yourself when and how did you learn to cook?

Rat and I both had a passion for cooking. Our passion for cooking started with our dinner parties. We found out women liked it when a man cooked for them. My first night at the beach, my fraternity brother showed me how to make mayonnaise. It was a simple egg yolk, lemon juice and vegetable oil emulsion. I was amazed how easily it went together. I think that was the seed for me. I didn’t go to a cooking school. In the 1970’s culinary schools were in their infancy in the United States. Besides, I couldn’t afford the time away from earning a living to go to school. I was poor.

I learned from cookbooks. I started with the Joy of Cooking and progressed through Julia Child, Jacques Pépin, James Beard and others. I had a book titled, The Great Chefs of France, I loved. The Joy of Cooking and it were the most worn. In the end I had a couple hundred cookbooks.

I learned from cooking magazines, Gourmet in particular. Caroline Bates wrote reviews of California restaurants. I liked her. Unlike some reviewers who delight in ripping a restaurant apart, she and her East Coast cohort Jay Jacobs only reviewed restaurants that were good. They would point out flaws but for the most part they wrote why these restaurants were good. I would plan trips to California and New York around these reviews. Of course, that was after I made some money.

I learned technique from chefs and cooks where I worked and where I ate. In Italy there is an old saying about cooking. "Watch, then steal with your eyes". That’s what I did. When I went out to eat, I always ended up in the kitchen talking with the chef or a cook. This would exasperate some of my companions, but they would soon learn this was me. It was a compulsion for me. I collected recipes. My eyes stole recipes from the cooks at the places I worked. I got some from family and friends. I got some from my cookbooks and the food magazines. I ended up with quite a few.

I realized early on I needed a foundation. I found it in ‘The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery’ by Escoffier and the CIA’s ‘The Professional Chef’. At the time, most of the upscale restaurants in America were French based, either actually being French or founded on French technique. I liked the intensity of flavor I got from using stocks, ripe produce, and quality ingredients.

While in my father’s boot camp (he was a Major in the Marine Corps), I spent four years on a farm. My father had a small garden behind the house and a four-acre plot in a field on the way to the creek. He raised a lot of different fruits and vegetables. They were never picked unless they were ripe. I learned early on what a ripe tomato should taste like. It was the same with corn, peas, green beans, onions, melons, rhubarb, and a host of other things. I especially like the early spring wild asparagus my dad found in the fence row that led to the back pasture. They were small and there never was an abundance of them, but they were tasty. I built a sensory memory of what these foods should taste like. At the time I didn’t realize that. They were just dinner.

My mother was a typical housewife of the 50’s and 60’s. She didn’t cook complicated dishes. Things were simple. We had sliced tomatoes with only salt and pepper, fried pork chops, sliced cucumber and onion topped with vinegar, fried chicken, pot roast and mashed potatoes with gravy. The most complicated dish she made was pork chops in Spanish rice. It was a sensory memory for me. It would come back as diced pork loin in sofrito and rice as the basis of a paella dish ten years later. Some cooks see things other cooks don’t. Does that make them better? No, it makes them different. I like different. I’m not alone.

Food and wine are connected. I learned about wine while I worked in different restaurants. I learned the most from a customer. Eddie and Erica Ausch owned a deli and wine shop (Reisner’s Delicatessen) back off the beach. It had the best wine selection in the area. This was before the internet. I spent hours walking up and down those aisles looking at bottles and reading the labels. Eddie worked those aisles too, but he was selling. I wasn’t buying anything. I bought from the same wholesalers he did. Eddie noticed this but he also noticed the interest I had in wine.

Malcolm Forbes said, “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” Eddie was like that. After talking with Eddie for two minutes I realized I knew nothing at all about wine. Eddie didn’t accept that and took me under his wing. Eddie believed there is only one way to learn about wine. You have to taste it. He believed tasting it included tasting the good stuff, the really good stuff. He was like that really good tennis player you want to play against because it will improve your game. You have to realize that it does absolutely nothing for his game. So, why did he do it? He did it for the love of the game.

We visited each other’s restaurants. We always pulled a few corks. We always shared. One trip to Eddie’s involved a corned beef sandwich and a bottle of 1966 Chateau Haut Brion. It would turn out to be my favorite wine. It had a particular depth and earthy quality that no other wine possessed. It was a favorite of Eddie’s too. We tasted a lot of different wines. Some were expensive. Some were good buys. Some were not to our taste. They all taught me something. They were just like people.

When I left the beach, I lost touch with Eddie. Over the years I heard that Eddie and Erica’s families were Holocaust refugees. She and her family got out of Austria in 1938 when they were sponsored by a cousin in Norfolk. She was 3. Eddie’s family got out of Vienna in 1939 for New York when he was 8. When I knew them in Virginia Beach, they never spoke of this past. They were too busy living the present.

Poor people eat what they can grow, shoot, or catch. They don’t waste anything. Wealthy people eat whatever they want. Waste is not a consideration for them. I worked in upscale restaurants that catered to the wealthy. I would cater to them too. My menus consisted of luxury items, beef tenderloin, rack of lamb, veal, duck, lobster, crab, and fresh fish. I made everything from scratch. I didn’t use shortcuts.

I was in the first wave of truly American cooks. I was a Francophile who dared to believe American food could be as good as French. I was young and arrogant. I was excited. I didn’t have wealthy parents or a trust fund. I knew if I failed, I wouldn’t get another chance. I worked long hours to prevent that from happening. I joined a different brotherhood. Here cuts and burns designated your membership far more readily that a secret handshake or motto. The cooking line involves things that can hurt you; sharp knives, finger severing cleavers, arm searing grills, vats of boiling water, caldrons of bubbling oil and a slew of bone crushing machines.

This was the birth of the Iron Gate House. We were constantly changing, upgrading, and evolving our equipment, food, and taste. We were constantly learning. You never know everything. Along the way, I got to meet Jacques Pépin and a lot of other famous chefs and restaurant people. I am a lucky man. I have gotten pretty much everything I have ever wanted.

And to go back to the kind of person Sarah Wilson was, on our second day we were open for lunch (we did lunch the first year). Sarah brought in a group of ladies for lunch and insisted on paying when we tried to comp her bill. She found out from her waiter that we didn’t have a lunchtime dishwasher and I was back there washing dishes and cooking. The 82-year-old lady got up, bid farewell to her guest and marched back to our kitchen. I looked up from preparing some lunches and she had grabbed an apron, rolled up her sleaves and was washing dishes. This brought tears to my eyes.

This is probably way more information than you wanted but once I got started it was hard to stop. Sherrill and I ran The Iron Gate House for 6 years and sold it to 4 of our employees, 2 from the kitchen, 2 from the front. It was time for us to move on and that is another story. Over the years they, “paved over paradise and put up a parking lot”. The Iron Gate House no longer exists, a parking garage sits in its place, Sarah Wilson died, and Sherrill and I are divorced. (It happens even to good people.)

I’ve included a couple of pictures in case you have forgotten what the place looked like or just need a little refresher.

Regards,

Michael

I haven't heard back from Mr. Rhodes. With the uncertainty of time, any number of things could have happened. A couple of them I don't wish to think about. No matter what, it was nice of him to remember the Iron Gate House. Old customers are the best kind because they help you to remember too. Thank you, Mr. Rhodes.