.jpg) Mike Mandzak follows his dad’s legacy
Mike Mandzak was like a lot of youngsters who wasn’t sure what he wanted to do when he grew up.
Following after a father with the same name, who owned The Meadows, one of the area’s top watering holes and restaurants, really wasn’t on his mind after the younger Mandzak enrolled in the University of Miami (Florida). “I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he admits.
While working for his dad on summer vacations meant doing odd jobs around the restaurant, washing dishes, dishing up vegetables and sweeping floors didn’t really make him feel like he wanted a career in his dad’s business.
And like a lot of his generation, young Mike didn’t finish college and instead joined the family business, something he felt was very temporary.
Now, 34 years later, the son has replaced his dad who was somewhat of a legend in the city, and he admits there are still times when he wonders what he wants to do.
“One day dad tossed me the keys and said it was mine and I could run it or I could sell it,” Mandzak recalls.
And The Meadows has been his ever since but there was a lot of trial and error in learning how to manage the restaurant. Today, he does it all—not much cooking, he admits, but he could prepare a few dishes—from ordering the food to helping bus the tables on a busy Friday or Saturday evening to mixing drinks when the clientele is particularly thirsty.
There are a lot of memories tied up the restaurant, Mandzak said. He has gotten to know many of the high rollers in the community over the years and like his father he makes sure that all his customers get special attention.
Gordon Lindsay, his second in command, has been with The Meadows for two decades. He and Mandzak go to great lengths to please their patrons. An examplel came very recently when Doug Fuller, an AK Steel Corp. representative called one morning from the Atlanta Airport to tell Mandzak that he would be coming to Middletown and asked that they save him a piece of his favorite pie for lunch.
And unless he’s busy assisting the kitchen, which has a staff of four including two cooks, or bartending young Mike makes the rounds of his customers, exchanging pleasantries with many that he knows well after all these years.
The Meadows began operation in 1934 when the senior Mandzak, who operated other well known places like the Horseshoe Bar, opened The Meadows across from Armco Steel Corp.’s Yankee Road gate, serving sandwiches and beer to steelworkers on their lunch break. It was not long after that the company executives came to lunch and dinner.
The Meadows began to move into local lore as the place to go for fine dining and good cheer and attracted more than just workers from across the street. It’s fame spread to area residents and there were visits from sports celebrities as well as out-of-towners looking for a good meal and spirits. It has been written about in restaurant periodicals and newspapers as a place to go.
The restaurant hasn’t changed much over the 70 years and still pretty much the same décor, except for lights over a collection of drawings that came from the old Sorg Mansion and a TV set behind the bar atop a mahogany cabinet built by the younger Mandzak.
The high backed booths, made of a richly colored mahogany, and soft music offer customers a semblance of privacy and sometimes it difficult to know who is sitting behind you.
The menu, except for prices, hasn’t changed all that much in the past few decades, although it does change daily. A glass of top scotch, which once retailed for 70 cents, of course, is more like $7, and a filet mignon dinner, which might have cost $2 is now about $20. Most meals, which include two vegetables and a salad, are moderately priced.
You can still get one of those sandwiches, if you choose, and one of the popular meals on Friday is chicken and dumplings and on Saturdays it’s probably steak or seafood. Both evenings draw a crowd, sometimes helped along by telephone calls to those who want confirmation on the evening menus.
In the early days, you could count on the Kentucky Derby to bring in the horsey crowd, known to wager a bet or two among themselves or stage high stake gin rummy games that broke out occasionally.
The Meadows and other investments by his father gave young Mike the kind of education that he wouldn’t have gotten at college as he traveled with his mother and father to some exotic places, as well as Europe where the family often visited Paris and other major cities.
In many ways, young Mandzak has paid his way, working long hours at the restaurant, something he still hasn’t gotten used to over the years. His only day off, except for vacations, is Sunday but he still drops by the restaurant to do book work and other odd jobs.
“When I’m there on Sunday, I think about my father and his friends,” Mandzak said. While he doesn’t see any ghosts of The Meadows past, he said he has nothing but fond memories of his father. “He was a very kind and generous man.”
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