Because sometimes the lessons we learn are taught to us in retrospect…
Here’s how a visit to a 1960s restaurant in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania taught us everything we need to know about fishing and swimming against the current.
“Perhaps I should not have been fisherman,” he thought. “But that was the thing that I was born for.” — Ernest Hemingway
I’m traveling with my mother on this trip. Our first long road trip together. She is curious about my nostalgic adventures and how I go about my time travels. We are hungry after a long day and lost in the Pennsylvania backroads. But I don’t just want to eat at any place. I want to eat at an old place. Something with a bit of history and nostalgia to it. With only a slight signal left on my phone, I rely on the travels of another nostalgic who is familiar with the area, Mod Betty and her RetroRoadmap, for dining suggestions. The map leads me to The Fisherman Restuarant — and for that I will forever be grateful.
We walk in and the place is empty, with the exception of a man seated at the end of the counter eating his meal and writing in a small notebook. We wonder if he is “The Fisherman,” but he quickly introduces himself as “Walt” and says his father (now long gone) was The Fisherman.
“The Fisherman” doing what he loved best. Some of these fish actually still hang in the restaurant.
The place appears frozen in time in the 1960s, with long laminate counter tops, wood paneling, and a vintage cigarette dispenser in the corner to match the era. Walt shows us around and tells us the story of the restaurant.
Although his family has always been in the restaurant business in one way or another, the day his father decided to open his own, it was his mother that needed some convincing. “This restaurant took a lot out of them. As a kid, I didn’t realize how they were struggling. As I grew up and became more involved with the restaurant, I realized this place was just something to keep money going. My father did what was necessary to support the family. He taught all of us how to run the business…how to ‘fish’ in a way. My family didn’t make a lot of money, but we always ate.”
The furnishings were all made by his father in the 1960s — a fisherman with an eye for dinettes, laminate countertops, and vinyl coverings. He tells me the fish hanging on the wall are not plastic, but instead, were once alive, caught by his father, and proudly displayed in the restaurant. “Everything he treasured is here.”
I asked him about the double doors that lead to a room in the back. He opens the doors to a larger dining area that has not been used in years. The room is dark, but the dust and clutter are visible. It appears almost like a sacred space. I imagine the boxes are full of mementos of days gone by and all the other unused items leftover from busier times at the restaurant. I didn’t say anything to him, but for a second it was almost as if I could hear laughter, chatter, and plinking of silverware against dishes.
Walt tells me he’s been working here since he was a kid. He started out washing dishes and eventually worked his way to the kitchen. He is now a retired microwave engineer and also once worked with a company that built the military jammers used during the Vietnam War. He was born and raised in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania in an Italian and Polish family. He says back then the town was family-oriented and everyone in town knew each other. “We knew everybody and stopped and frequented every business in town. All of the store owners lived in town. Back then there were a lot of bars too. Strangely enough now there are twice as many! It used to be a walkable town with two movie theaters. My family belonged to many of the social clubs and there were always lots of parties.”
Some of these cigarette brands have been around for a long time.
Cigarrete vending machine license sticker from 1968 is still there.
Back when cigarette packs cost $2.00 — in quarters.
I ask him why many of the stores in town have closed down and why it almost feels like a ghost town. He tells us “It’s hard to stay in business. Prices are so high. Mom and Pop places are a dying art. The restaurant business alone is a tough business. The only places in town that have succeeded are the breweries and wineries.” He goes on to say that well-known home improvement and discount stores in town are closing due to skyrocketing monthly rents in the five-figure range.
Original 1960s counter and stools at The Fisherman Restaurant.
We talk about all this, then he finally places the menu in front of us. He looks out the window and tells us everything, yet nothing at all, has changed — and I believe him.
I place my order and watch Walt walk back toward the kitchen where is brother is cooking. In addition to the cooking, his brother does the decorating around the restaurant. “He likes to do it and the kids like to see it. See the rabbits there on the cigarette machine? At Christmastime, they become elves! We just finished taking down all of the Halloween stuff. We had a big spider hanging over the counter and this whole place was black and orange. My brother has a whole collection of blow molds that he fixes and puts up throughout the year. It gives this place some life.”
He tells me the restaurant has had some lively days in times past and says the one time he skipped out on work, his mother calls and tells him “You should have been here tonight! The Beach Boys stopped by! They put on the jukebox and sang along to their songs — and you missed it!” Apparently, the group had been performing in the area and decided to stop in for a bite to eat before hitting the road. Walt initially thought it was a ploy by his mother to get him back to the restaurant, but then realized her enthusiasm was genuine and the story was true.
M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Split” was filmed on location at The Fisherman Restaurant.
Sign on the booth where a photo shoot for the album cover for local band “Hillary Wallace + The Death” took place.
The album cover for local band “Hillary Wallace + The Death” shot on location at The Fisherman Restaurant.
He says that every time something wonderful happens at the restaurant, he thinks of his mother. He points at the small signs and placards he has posted in various booths where photo and movie shoots occurred in recent years. “Geez, she would have loved all this. To have seen all the cameras and lights in here and then to see that her little restaurant was in a big movie somewhere.”
The food arrives on the table and as we eat, my mother explains to me the process of vinyl upholstery. Having worked in the business, she is familiar with it and calls it a job well done. She talks to Walt about the technical aspect of it and points out that the seats in the booth don’t appear original.
Everything in the restaurant is original to the 1960s, except for the vinyl seat cushions which have been replaced several times.
He explains that the seats are the only thing in the restaurant that have been replaced multiple times due to their cracking and wearing down. “Everything else is original, the way my dad built it.” My mother observably points out “Well, I guess you could say thats a good thing about the seats. Means you’ve had a lot of people come through here.”
The morning the restaurant opened, Walt was on his way to his first day of senior year of school, when his father frantically called him and said “You gotta’ get up here! I’ve got customers in here, the baker came and I need someone to help him at the back door, the pilot blew and I can’t make the eggs! I need your help.” Walt briefly protested, “I have to go to school!” But he went to help his father anyway because he understood how important this day was for his family. Needless to say, he was late for class. As he tells us the story, Walt is lost in a train of thought, “That was November 3, 1960…”
I look down at my phone and see the date. November 3, 2018. I almost jump out of my seat. “Walt! Today is November 3rd,” I tell him. His eyes widen and a smile comes across his face, but unlike me, he remains in his seat and stares out the window totally consumed by his memories of opening day. “Well, isn’t that something…” And for a moment, I can’t tell whether he is proud that restaurant has lasted this long or whether he is weary about the same. My answer comes seconds later when he stands to clear our table, “I wish my parents were here to see this day.”
When I heard about the restaurant’s closing, I broke the news to my mother and she echoed the same sentiments I used to say when I first started my nostalgic adventures…”Oh no! But we were just there. We ate there, we talked to him, we said we would go back.”
“Nostalgic Mom”
Like so many other places we had mourned before, we felt the loss. We weren’t naive to its condition, but we had hoped for the best. We cast our line by stopping in and dining there, by showing our enthusiasm for the meal and good conversation in an attempt to encourage the owner who undoubtedly understood the meaning of an empty dining room. We even vowed to return in hopes that they would hang on just a bit longer.
Norris Milk Dispenser
Colorful cakes and handwritten signs on display.
As I think about The Fisherman Restaurant now, I picture this:
A lone fisherman sitting in a small boat on rocky waters. His bait all gone, his tackle worn. The winds are fierce, the waves are high, and water is beginning to seep into the boat. He has hung in there as long as he could. Then he realizes he can no longer see ashore. He packs up his tackle box, picks up the oars, and begins to row back in the direction where he last saw land. When he gets home, he doesn’t regret being out on the boat. He doesn’t regret his empty fish bucket. He doesn’t regret being a fisherman, for he knows that’s what he was born to do.
Neon sign for “The Fisherman” hangs in the window.
I think about The Fisherman coming in after a long day at sea, still flicking the scales off his pant legs, and hammering in the nail heads on this dinette set where I currently sit. This place is a time warp created by a man whose only passion was fishing and angling out a life for his family. And for 58 years, this place managed to swim along and fight the current, when everything else around it had been caught up by the lip.
You know the funny things about currents? As much as we struggle to fight against them or even try to keep up with them, they are a vital part of our lives. In the natural, they circulate water around the world, they have a significant impact on our weather, and most recently, have helped serve as alternative energy sources.
Everything in the restaurant has a “fisherman” theme including the vintage wooden whale clock.
The fishermen — they all know this. Walt’s father — he understood this. And maybe that’s why he allowed his sons to see him build this place with his bare hands. Maybe that’s why he pulled them out of school the morning of opening day. Maybe that was his way of passing on the bait and filling up their tackle box. So they would be ready to catch as many fish as they could before the direction of the current changed.
If you’ve been to The Fisherman Restaurant, you know what I’m talking about.
If you’ve never been there, my hope in sharing these “you had to be there” moments, is so that you can feel as though you were.
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