1-08-2024 4:17am

RECALLING JOHNNY U

Above, Matchbook cover for The Golden Arm in Towson, owned by John Unitas. It closed on March 17th, 1994. I had the opportunity to have sour beef and dumplings on March 17th 1993 for their famous St. Patrick's Day menu.

Diners were frequently joined by owner John Unitas, who opened the Golden Arm while he was still a quarterback for the Baltimore Colts. It operated out of York Road Plaza, a few blocks north of Northern Parkway, from 1968-1994.

The Celebrity Connection

Jan Whitaker, Restaurant-ing through history

Celebrities – and their names and faces – have had multiple connections with restaurants, generally adding to the glamour or appeal of the restaurants involved. One of the most obvious and probably the oldest attraction is the chance that customers will spot celebrities in a restaurant.

Restaurateurs and silver screen celebrities capitalized on that attraction in the 1930s and 1940s by encouraging gossip columns to publish sightings of dining celebrities. Despite their lack of real significance or accomplishments, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were one of the celebrity couples most often attracting columnists’ attention in restaurants.

About the same time, there were also eating places, especially delicatessens, that named sandwiches for stars of stage and screen. Reuben’s was the best known, but in 1931 there was also Dave’s Blue Room, another NYC deli. As late as 1960 a Hollywood deli menu was full of humorous names such as Lox Hudson, Lucille Matzo Ball, and Judy Garlic.

Other eating places such as The Brown Derby and Sardi’s displayed portraits of celebrities who were past or present patrons of that restaurant.

But the BIG bump in celebrity links to restaurants came in the late 1960s and 1970s with the franchising boom. Many restaurant chain franchisers believed that by linking a chain to the name of a well-known athlete, singer, or actor, they would sell more fried chicken or hamburgers. Usually the celebrity was paid a fee and possibly a percentage of profits for their participation, which could involve taking the role of chairman of the board or as little as lending their name or likeness or making an occasional appearance at openings.

Much of the time the deal turned into a losing proposition for those celebrities who put their own money into the venture, as well as for stock market investors and franchisees. Joe Namath dismayed investors when he announced in 1969 that he was retiring from football to become chairman of Broadway Joe’s. The following year he pulled out when the chain’s stock plummeted downward. Within two years of becoming chairman of the soon-defunct Mickey Mantle’s Country Cookin’, the former New York Yankee resigned.

Some other sports figures who lent their names to restaurants included Dizzy Dean, Rocky Graziano, Fran Tarkenton, and Brady Keys.

Among Black celebrities failure took on a sadder note, given that some of them had hoped to bring business opportunities to Black communities. Other Black entertainers with restaurant connections were Fats Domino, Mahalia Jackson, and Sammy Davis, Jr. Black athletes included Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Brady Keys, who created and headed All-Pro Chicken. In 1969 he had 10 outlets in San Diego, where he began the chain, as well as in Pittsburgh, Rochester, and New York City. Like Muhammad Ali, Keys hoped to spur Black business, and enjoyed much better luck than Ali, who lost a lot of money fast with his short-lived Champburger chain.

Among singers and musicians who joined restaurant ventures in the 1960s and 1970s were Trini Lopez, Tony Bennett, Julius LaRosa, Eddie Arnold, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Hank Williams, Pat Boone, and Al Hirt. Most of them took a bruising. Some other entertainers were Minnie Pearl, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Jackie Gleason, Arthur Treacher, Johnny Carson, and Rodney Dangerfield. [Tony Bennett display above]

Observers were quick to point out that the celebrities who did well with a restaurant or chain were those whose places had good food and management. Of themselves, celebrity connections counted for little or nothing. A frequently cited example of a success story was the Gino’s Pizza chain [not to be confused with Papa Gino’s]. Its good fortune was attributed to food quality and good management, rather than a name. In fact, most customers had no idea that Gino was Gino Marchetti, formerly of the Baltimore Colts.

But while a celebrity name could not guarantee restaurant success, it could be helpful. As Steve Chrisman, manager of two Sam’s Cafes in NYC (the name was the nickname of his wife Mariel Hemingway), would observe in the 1980s, “You need to get customers in to become visible. Mariel’s notoriety was important.”

The new wave of celebrity involvement in restaurants came in the late 1980s when it became popular to invest in restaurants, particularly for film stars. The restaurants were nearly all located either in NYC or the Los Angeles area. Involvement was largely financial and rarely meant day-to-day management. In some cases stars grouped together as was true of Malibu Adobe that came into being in 1987 through a venture by Dustin Hoffman, Tony Danza, Bob Newhart, Stacy Keach, Alan Ladd Jr., and Randy Quaid, with Ali McGraw [shown above] in the role of decorator.

The 1980s wave was not about franchised chains, but mostly single restaurants. And that probably tended to give them a somewhat higher survival rate – as it had earlier for Joe DiMaggio, Joe Lewis [above, ca. 1940], Jack Dempsey [shown at top], and Stan Musial. Some of the new restaurants bore celebrity names, for example Charo’s Cantina, Tommy Lasorda’s Ribs and Pasta, and Bono, owned by Sonny Bono. Most did not, e.g., Dolly Parton’s Dockside Plantation, Tom Selleck’s Black Orchid, Clint Eastwood’s Hog’s Breath Inn, or Midwestern exception Oprah Winfrey’s The Eccentric. But their connections were widely known by patrons and they could sometimes be spotted dining in “their” restaurant.