My family owned a restaurant in the late ’60s to early ’70s. This is going to be an on-going series about the restaurant and things that happened in it. When I did a search of my family archive I was surprised at how few pictures I have. So I may have to use some stock photos for some future posts.

This part of the story is background.

Way back in 1937 my father graduated from High School. He wanted to go college but there wasn’t enough money available. So he got a job as a clerk of the grocery store chain named Market Basket. By the time he and my mom married in Jan. 1937 he was an assistant manage of one of the stores. In order to move up in the retail business you have to move every 2 or 3 years to a bigger store. That’s why my sister, my brother and I were all born in different places.

My parents were living in Corning, NY in 1951 when they rented a building in Horseheads as a fruit and vegetable market. My mother was going to be there when my father was working at the Market Basket. He joking said to my mother as he left one day “call me if you run out of apples.” Unbeknownst to them was that there was an open house at a new housing development about a mile away. That afternoon my mother made the phone call because she was out of apples and a lot of other things. Soon after my father quit the Market Basket to also work full time at their own market.

In 1953 they bought a larger building up the street. It was very successful. Besides whatever fruit and vegetables were in season, in the spring they sold lots of flowers. At Christmas time we made lots of money selling trees. Also had a small amount of regular grocery items. In the picture, it looks as if it was  late summer as there are a lot of watermelons and also some cantaloupes. I also see a sign for fresh corn. If you look real hard you will see my father kneeling.

Lake Road Farm Products

It seemed to come out of nowhere when at the end 1964 my parents said that they would be changing the building over to a restaurant in 1965. They had friends that had bought a successful restaurant in Painted Past, called Ramblers Rest. That restaurant was operated by my parent’s friend and then their daughter until 2017. Our restaurant didn’t last nowhere that long. New retail businesses average only 5 years and new restaurants average 2 years.

Next: Floor plan and set-up.