 |
| Chef-O-Nette Restaurant 2090 Tremont Center Upper Arlington, Ohio 43221 |
by Suebeth Dustheimer Zartman
When we first moved to Upper Arlington, my father often traveled. When he was away my mother, brother and I would often go to the Chef-O-Nette for lunch. I almost always had the Hangover platter, their signature sandwich, which is still on the menu. It’s basically a deluxe hamburger with a slice of ham. My mother usually had a BLT or the Chef Salad. My brother, John O, was the deviant and never ordered the same thing. My recollection is that in the fifties the Chef-O-Nette was the only restaurant in Upper Arlington other than the lunch counters at Tremont , Colley’s and Culter’s Drug Stores. That may be because UA was dry at the time.
My next experience at the Chef-O-Nette was summer lunches with friends before going swimming at Tremont Pool. We almost always had burgers and fries. This was a special treat, and at 12 and 13 I felt so grown up. Paying for lunch with my babysitting money and knowing to leave a tip made me feel independent and self-sufficient. Several of my friends rode their bikes, but I was usually dropped off by my mother. At that age my parents did not want me crossing Fishinger Road…so much for feeling grown up.
For many years I left the Chef behind. Once we all got driver’s licenses, we were off to Frisch’s on Northwest Boulevard or the Dairy Queen on Fifth Avenue or late night runs to White Castle at the corner of Fifth and Northwest.
After high school, college, marriage and parenthood, I returned to Chef-O-Nette with my son when he was about four. We lived nearby and my husband traveled some. Nearly every Thursday night Andrew and I would walk to Tremont Library for family film night. Afterwards we would cross the street and go to the Chef-o-Nette. Andrew loved to sit at the counter and twirl on the stools. Probably every child in UA has done that at one time or another. Sometimes we would share a slice of pie, sometimes a thick, old-fashioned chocolate milkshake. Chef-O-Nette still had the original milk shake whizzer. We always had to hurry because the Chef closed at 8:00.
Again there is a long gap in my Chef-O-Nette experiences. When my children were growing up, so many other choices existed: MCL, pizza, Umberto’s and Lou Holtz’s deli at Kingsdale, and of course fast food. I was a working single parent so we went out to dinner or picked up food often, but for some reason Chef-O-Nette wasn’t on our radar screen.
Now we are up to the 4th generation of my family going to the Chef. Many Saturday mornings I join my son and two grandchildren at Tremont Library. We then walk to Northam Park playground and follow that with lunch at the Chef-O-Nette. Sometimes we are joined by my daughter Carrie and her husband and children.
There you have it - my whole family from 1956 until the present has been customers of the Chef. It’s like being transported in a time machine and stepping out into the 1950s. Little has changed - the Naugahyde booths and décor, and even the bar stools my son spun around on look exactly the same today.
