A Picture and a Deli from Another Time

With Sanducci’s having taken up residence in new digs up the street, their old spot lies vacant these days. Sure, Dante’s is still there serving up their great stuff, but one cannot help but feel the void of the space that was once a restaurant

In all, it got us to thinking about the site, and what was there long before Sanducci’s and Dante’s. We were already contemplating the topic when one recent morning in our email in box we found a great picture out of the past courtesy of John Fuggazzie.

We share it with you here.

This image says so much.

We grew up connected to the south end of town and the River Edge Deli – whose German Potato Salad and Christmas season Herring we’ve previously reminisced of.

We only became fully introduced to Governale’s in its later years (in the 1970’s) when we used to partake of their hero sandwiches – good ones too.

This picture, though, speaks to an earlier time. By all appearances the car in the lot is vintage 1950’s.

The storefront signage harkens back to what used to be a fixture in Bergen County - T&W ice cream. This local sweet could be found on shelves of supermarkets and grocers. But its real draw was the creamery located on Ridgewood Avenue just across from the Duck Pond. Parents could create an incentive for area kids of the time – a visit to T&W for ice cream and a walk around the pond. That could kill a nice 90 minutes for a parent seeking to occupy their kids in an era before play dates and kindergarten sports.

Looking at the picture we are also drawn by the market itself. It, along with the Riverside Market and the River Edge Deli, was a place where you could go to get more than a sandwich, soda and chips. As the sign over the door reads, it served up “Home Cooked Foods” – dishes prepared for homes without micro-waves and with authentic ingredients (Even the big companies were packaging real stuff back then).

We have heard from others that they served a superior potato salad as well.

In addition to these home-cooked foods, Governale’s shelves stocked food and products you might need for your kitchen or dinner table. It harkened back to an earlier era – a place that recalls a grocer and not a super-sized internationally owned corporate supermarket. In fact, it was places like Governale’s, where many folks went for their regular shopping. Yes, there was the revolutionary Packard-Bambergers in Hackensack (now site of a Target) that brought a West Coast style supermarket east to N.J. for the first time (in the 1920’s).

In the post-World War II period and the post-war auto and baby boom, the likes of A&P and Honey Dew Market (before Shop Rite) came to town. But through t all, old school and neighborly merchandising and shopping could be found at a place like Governale’s. In addition to your soup, sandwich, and meatloaf, one could also purchase Corn Flakes, Tide and toilet paper.

It wasn’t a convenience store and it wasn’t a supermarket. It was just a deli and food market. A store from and differ place and a different sensibility.

A look at our picture also we also notices the vintage Pepsi-Cola sign before the advent of the “Pepsi Generation” (1960’s), and “frozen foods” when that was still a big deal (Does anyone remember the buses that touted that they were “Air Conditioned” ? Makes us recall the stories we heard from an older generation that went to the movies as much for the A.C. as the movie itself)

Finally, after all these decades, notwithstanding all the changes in our town and in our world, perhaps not everything has changed. For example, at the site of Dante’s back in the 1950’s they were touting their “Home Made” Cold Cuts and Lasagne. In some cases, the more things change the more they stay the same.

BTW, many thanks to John for sending along this great picture recalling River Edge from another place and time.

We are always on the look for others that, like this one, have stories to tell.