Friday Night Dinner at Brothers'...

When our kids were in grammar school and even into high school we had a Friday night ritual – pizza at Brothers’ on the corner of Morford Place and West Front Street in Red Bank. It was great, we’d get there early, about 6 – 6:30pm, get a table in the back where our friend and neighbor, Maryann, would be our server and we were in for the night.

Before we would even order the kids would be yelling over to other tables to greet friends from Little Silver, Shrewsbury and Red Bank. Same bunch every Friday night. Kids would be (if not running) moving here and there saying ‘hello’ to everyone they saw. There were many people who we only knew because we’d see them every Friday night but we’d check on how their week had gone and wish them a great evening.

We talked the entire time we ate; we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ when appropriate (even put candles on a pizza once or twice); and thought nothing of table hopping if we spotted someone we wanted to engage in conversation. It was a bit of a circus and we loved it.

Fast forward to 2011 - my brother and his bride and the better half and I celebrate our birthdays by going out to dinner. The birthday person gets to pick the restaurant. My older brother LOVES the mussels in marinara sauce at Brothers’.  Please know that when I say he LOVES the mussels I mean he would probably hand me over to the Taliban if they were holding his mussels captive – fair exchange in his eyes, I’m sure. For this reason we sometimes celebrate his birthday more than a dozen times a year.

Friday night is the night we can usually clear the deck and go out to dinner arranging to get to Brothers’ by 6:30pm having made a reservation (something new – you couldn’t do this years ago). We get there and there are several tables filled but still places available.  Settled in at a table where Maryann will be our server (yes, she is still there along with her sister, Carol, and Kim who have been there forever – we like to say, “They came with the building”) we order the regular – the Sicilian antipasto and fried calamari to start and drinks all around. Before we are served the appetizers we meet and greet friends from any number of towns in the area catching up with Maryann on how her grandchildren are doing, her sons, yadda, yadda, yadda. When we do take the time to start eating you can notice a buzz – like a hum, a crescendo that goes up and then down and then suddenly, with the entrance of a new family, goes off the wall again.

I comment to all assembled, “Funny, I never noticed all the noise when we used to come here years ago.” My brother – the one who would trade me to the Taliban says, “You were young then – now you’re old.” At that moment the cutest little 3 or 4 year-old wanders over from an adjacent table and asks if we are having pizza for dinner. The better half, a sucker for kids, strikes up a conversation describing to this lovely child mussels in marinara sauce. My sister-in-law has left the table to talk to a friend she has spotted across the room, way across the room actually. I get up as I spot someone I work with coming toward me with arms extended. 

Assembled again about 15 minutes later we devour the antipasto and the calamari – the mussels cannot be far behind. After years of doing this mussel bit – we have a system. The empty bowls for shells go to one side of either end of the table and we share the shell bowls. This allows us more room for the bowls of mussels and baskets of bread which take up much of the table. Additionally my sister-in-law insists on getting a bowl of plain pasta that she covers with the marinara sauce from her mussel bowl. For close to a half an hour there is little if any conversation at the table as the mussels are scooped up like fish flying out of water. Pausing only when someone waves hello or to answer Maryann when she asks if we need more drinks, we are intent on our mission – let no mussel at this table go uneaten.

Getting our heads out of the mussel bowls we look around – not an empty table anywhere. The line at the front door goes out the door. Hm, aren’t we lucky we got here early?  We share with each other (for the 110^th time) how wonderful the mussels were. Someone says, “Everything was just great as usual.”  This whole scenario is like ‘scripted’.

Picking up the check – it was after all the brother’s birthday, I notice that the din of the sound of families and friends laughing, slurping, cheering that the ‘pizza has finally come’ is just about overwhelming. Walking to the door I say, “Maybe we’ll go someplace a little quieter next time we go out.”  I get ‘the look’ from the other three.  Sure, like hell we will.

C.M. McLoughlin, a writer and editor from New Jersey and New York, can be reached at mcloughlin43@gmail.com.