Liberté, Fraternité, Latté

Published on Friday, 01 July 2011 16:59

Written by Randy Garbin

Taking the Family Roadside into the Catskills for some R&R reveals a sad diner situation and a café for the undead that could bring life back to a struggling downtown.

The family Roadside recently vacationed in the wilds of New York’s Catskills, and though the original intention of the trip was to do as little as possible, the proximity of so many diners to our actual vacationing spot beckoned too loudly for me to ignore. With the infamous Munson Diner no too far from our perfect rustic cabin on a quiet lake in the woods, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to give it another lookover, my second since it moved up from Manhattan a few years ago. Closed my first time through almost a year ago, I would discover that little or nothing had changed.

The visit came on our third day of a week-​long respite, when the rains came and stuck around like John Belushi’s “Thing that Wouldn’t Leave.” We opted to hit the road from our cabin near Wurtsboro and drive out to Liberty, where Mrs. Roadside and I each had specific destinations in mind. She wanted to go see the long-​closed Grossinger’s Hotel, erroneously believing that it served as the inspiration for the 1987 movie “Dirty Dancing.” According to IMDB​.com, they filmed that movie in North Carolina, and Grossinger’s closed up for good the year before.

The decaying Grossinger’s resort in Liberty, New York.

Once again, we found another standout example of a former Catskill glory left to founder and decay as a festering reminder of the region’s inability to stay current in any industry, tourism or otherwise. We took a quick tour of the sad grounds, which a rainy day managed to make even more depressing. Grossinger’s still maintains and operates its golf course, which looks like a spectacular place to play, but the drive up to the club house took us past ruins comparable to the communities around the Chernobyl disaster. Oh happy day.

I, of course, wanted to get another look at the Munson Diner, which I last saw at night in the dead of last winter. Closed then, it status hasn’t changed, and it stands above downtown Liberty as another beacon of failure and folly. From most accounts, the diner took four years to open, and then stayed that way for only one.

Another view of the closed Munson Diner.

Moved from Manhattan in 2004 by five partners hoping to spark the tourist trade in Liberty, bringing in desperately needed business into what once looked like a sweet traditional business district. In fact, Liberty has preserved most of its original streetscape with most of its storefronts filled, albeit with marginal retail.

I followed this unfolding development closely and hoped for the best, but I had serious doubts. The project had all the earmarks of a diner disaster. Yes, the new owners did have a location (rule #1), but they had no apparent restaurant experience among them. They apparently had the finances, but they didn’t have a plan. The also apparently took the counsel of Daniel Zilka, who in newspaper reports of the diner’s move, talked of the extraordinary success rates of those who undertook these projects. After all, everyone loves a good diner.

Those who truly understand the business know better. I don’t doubt that Mr. Zilka received his rewards for brokering the deal and facilitating the diner’s escape from Manhattan, but at about the same time, I heard from a Brooklyn restaurateur interested in the diner, and after making him think long and hard about moving it to his location less than 10 miles away, he bailed. The Liberty guys took the bait, hook, line and sunk nearly a half-​million dollars into this half-​brained idea.

The interior of the Munson Diner, which looks considerably altered for a “saved” diner and one on the National Historic Register, especially compared to when I first saw it in 1992.
Of course it failed, but not before installing a succession of managers, each one failing more miserably than the last. Today, the diner sits empty and in clear view of most of Main Street. I first visited the Munson in 1992 when it still served the hurly burly of New York’s West Side. Hardly a showcase of diner preservation then, the diner looks even worse today.

Coffee and brains

Now late afternoon, we hoped to find a bakery or a coffee shop somewhere, and lo and behold, we found a funky little joint called The Zombean Coffee Haus, a café with a zombie theme. With warm cups of joe and desserts, we settled in as the rain poured down, considering which of the many games provided we’d play. Rock’m Sock’m Robots? Say no more! Roadside Girl and I knocked each other’s blocks off a couple dozen times while Mrs. Roadside read some of the Catskills tourism literature.

The Zombean Coffee Haus in Liberty, New York. In a picturesque town with a struggling economy, The Zombean stands out as a small beacon of hope. Open a little over a year ago, the little shop of horrific décor (and I mean that as a compliment) puts its own ghoulish spin on the coffee house concept. Its owner, Nuneh, describes it as a haven for gamers and comic book fans as well. She provides not only the obligatory free WiFi (for patrons only), but also the big, comfy thrift-​store sofas and plenty of table space for whatever games you might have in mind.

Being our first visit, we stuck to the basics: coffees and desserts. I had a home made cup cake (all the rage these days) and Roadside Girl chomped on her chocolate chip cookies.

The splendidly fiendish Nuneh of the Zombean.

Eventually, I got around to chatting up Nuneh, about her place and about Liberty in general, but I broke the ice with, “So what’s up with the diner on the hill?” Much of the story I’ve already related above, but Nuneh’s friend and presumably occasional employee Sal pounced on that question with many broadsides and pointed expletives aimed at those responsible for the Munson, and raised an angle I hadn’t considered, saying, “They spent all that money bringing that diner up here from the city, when they could have hired local people to build something instead!”

Sal continued railing against the diner as sorry excuse for a restaurant, saying it was never all that good. Nuneh largely concurred, but said that at first she liked it. After the hoopla died down, customers failed to return, and the managers and owners started cutting back on food quality, creating the inevitable death spiral.

The shuttered Liberty Theater could provide the makings of revival.

Right now, it’s anyone’s guess what might happen to the diner, but if history guides me at all, it tells me that the partners will ultimately find “other uses” for it. They’ll either turn it into an antique shop or maybe a deli, they’ll move it into storage to make room for other development, or they’ll simply demolish it. They certainly won’t find someone to turn it into a viable diner. That ship has sailed.

For truly local attractions like the Zombean, I hold out hope that it leads by example and helps the town blossom into a destination. It will take more people like Nuneh who take advantage of ground floor opportunities like these and inspire others to do the same.

Diner or no diner, Liberty has plenty to work with. Its downtown has held onto some impressive architecture and a more beautiful landscape exists nowhere else in the Northeast. When the locals develop a greater appreciation for what they already have rather than trying to turn the community into something it isn’t, better days will come. Until then, always remember the Zombean is less than five minutes off the Route 17 expressway. It’s good for your brain.