Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 21

iliibburni) iWt-vftaicifc S3 TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1989 21 After 40 years, remembering the enchanted era of I 1 1 in una ill. lima Eat'n Park business booms. Page 13. "We had strawberry glaze over everything and everyone." He also remembers when children could enroll in the Big Boy Club and on Christmas and their birthdays receive a token that could be redeemed at the restaurant' for a Big Boy burger. Later the restaurant offered a kiddies' comic book, which contained coded messages the youngsters could decipher if they sent for their Big Boy decoder.

Mary Lou Kramer, formerly of Over-brook and now of Elwood City, was one of eight original carhops at the first Eat 'n Park and started work on opening day, June 6. and were opened by a foot pedal. "We were so busy that first day, taking orders, serving customers and clearing trays that Cur tips got mixed in with the trash and we threw away more tips than we collected and that was before there was anything like 10 percent of a check." She still has the stub from her June 17, 1949, pay check, which totaled $14.40 for a 40-hour week. But money was never the lure to the job, Kramer said. "The job was something different and it really was a lot of fun." She quit her carhop job in September CONTINUED ON PAGE 23 There was no real training for the jod, Kramer says.

"They just told us to "go out there and act like a waitresses." "Acting like a waitress" meant taking iood orders (for Big Boys, fries, milkshakes and coffee was the early menu) and carrying them to the cars on metal trays, which clamped onto the car door. Customers would leave their lights on until their orders were taken then turn them off when they were ready to leave. Kramer said the trash bins were sunk into the ground behind the mini-restaurant iV mi wi nr 5'' (ij By Marcia Bennett Post-Gazette Start Writer Ot was some year! The era of saddle shoes and poodle skirts, Cuban heels and DA haircuts; Rodgers and Ham-merstein's musical "South Pacific" was the rave of Broadway; the No. 1 tune on the musical charts was "Some Enchanted Evening;" and Tokyo Rose was sentenced to a 10-year prison term for treason. Closer to home, it was the year Eat 'n Park opened its first 13-seat restaurant on Saw Mill Run Boulevard, "across from the stone yard" (then Magnotti and Gaudelli) and now the present site of Frank's and Shirley's Restaurant.

On a warm June night, a dozen or so young people began turning out double-decker burgers called Big Boys, which along with a soft drink, were served in your car. The year was 1949 and this week, and continuing through the month of June, Eat 'n Park Restaurants, now numbering 49, are celebrating their 40th birthday with a variety of events for "alumni" and friends. Today, from noon to midnight there is a reprise of the eat-in-your-car service with carhops, at the McKees Rocks restaurant; an Oldies Night is set for the Three Rivers Arts Festival June 15 and a Kennywood Day is scheduled June 26. John Viche of East Brookline is a Eat 'n Park veteran. He began working at the Saw Mill Run location at age 15.

"My friend asked me if I wanted a job parking cars and I told him I couldn't because I didn't have a driver's license. He said I didn't have to get in the cars, but just see that they were parked with just enough space between them for a carhop and a metal tray." He worked weekends from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m. A year later Viche was the assistant manager and at 18 was the youngest restaurant manager. Today, with 39 years of service, he is Eat 'n Park's director of research and development.

Viche says the carhop idea was initiated by Larry Hatch, the restaurant chain's founder who was impressed by a similar operation he had seen in Ohio. Hatch believed the secret to successful curb service was cleanliness and insisted the restaurant, staff and grounds be kept scrupulously tidy and the food be prepared fresh, and on site. "At one time we even ground our own hamburger patties," Viche says. That was back in the days when hamburgers were cooked on the grill in front of the inside customers. But when customers started kibitzing about how they wanted their hamburgers cooked, the cooking operation was moved behind the scenes.

Eat 'n Park's familiar strawberry pie also made from scratch was introduced in 1958 and a year later was featured as a lOth-anniversary promotion. Viche said for three days they gave away a free slice of strawberry pie with an order of burger and fries and had someone back in the cooler putting together the pre-baked pie shells, strawberry filling and whipped cream. r-)f in CT CETERA Film est attendance up Attendance at the 1989 Three Rivers Film Festival was up by more than 2,000 this year. The festival drew 7,228 viewers compared with 5,000 last year. The program was expanded by eight films, including three for children.

The top-grossing films In-' eluded "Hey Babu Riba" and "Burning Secret," both of which attracted an audience of 586, the Soviet sensation "Little Vera" with 479, and the Japanese "A Taxing Woman," with 472. Shop for arts The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts is renovating its headquarters at Fifth and Shady, so it has moved its popular gift shop to 5413 Walnut St. for the next few months. The Center Shop on Walnut opens this weekend at what was formerly the Blue Sky Gallery. The store will carry gifts in all price ranges made by Pittsburgh artists, including hand-painted jean jackets and tennis shoes, "trash art" jewelry, ceramic decanters and wine glasses.

Designer directors The latest secret weapon in the beauty Industry is Hollywood. Hollywood directors, to be specific. And good ones at that. Martin Scorsese Last Temptation of Christ," "Raging Bull," "Taxi recently collaborated on an ad for Giorgio Armani perfume. David Lynch "Blue has directed a commercial for Opium by Yves Saint Laurent.

French director Jean-Luc Godard has been shooting spots for jeans by Marithe and Francois Girbaud. The jeans commercials have aired in Europe and Canada and sales have soared. No word yet on whether they will be shown in this country. Summer jewels Forget those layers of Chanel chains or the serious Barbara Bush pearl choker. The jewelry trend this summer is pure nonsense.

Donna Karan is pushing dog tags on metal key chains for her casual DKNY line. Leather cords strung with pendants ranging from natural crystal to heraldic drops can be worn with T-shirts or silk dresses. Some pricier renditions are made of precious metals, like the solid sterling silver flask pendant by Elsa Peretti ($235 at Tiffany Scent barrago Have you lost track of the new fragrances introduced in the '80s? Given the barrage of scents that have been foisted on men and women, it's little wonder. Since 1973, when 17 scents for men and women were introduced, the number of new fragrances launched annually has soared. Some like Estee Lauder's Aliage and Ralph Lauren's Tuxedo are soon forgotten.

But that doesn't seem to deter the fragrance industry. Last year, 40 fragrances were launched for women and 20 for men, according to statistics from the Fragrance Foundation. Banned bottoms The bottom has fallen out of beach wear this summer, and that's upsetting some people in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. "We've had maybe a dozen young women we have asked to cover up or leave the beach," said city waterfront director Norma Jean Page. Part of her job is to keep the beach free of the near nudity of the G-string bathing suits, which are all the rage this summer.

"It's really no big deal. We just tell them we have had a city ordinance since 1976 against revealing certain parts of the body, including the buttocks. When they understand that, they are very nice and leave," Page said. A little farther south, in Myrtle Beach, only nudity is banned and there have been few complaints about the risque swimsuits. On the runway Saks Fifth Avenue has informal modeling of the David Hayes collection today from 11 a.m.

to 3 p.m. in the Designer Salon Linton's hosts a trunk showing of the Fabricant fall knitwear collection today in its Squirrel Hill store Brooks Hair Salon will host a symposium on personal style with Robert Pante, author of "Dressing to Win: How to Have More Money, Romance and Power" tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Sheraton Station Square. Call 261-1616 for reservations Country Road Australia, a new store with 66 branches in Australia, will open one of its six U.S. shops Thursday at The Galleria.

The store features high-quality Australian fashions for both sexes The Cellular One USTA National Amateur Clay Court and West Perm Tennis Championships will host a 100th anniversary dinner and silent auction Friday at the PAA. Call 551-5555 for tickets. Compiled by Marylynn Uricchio Jrrrdf tfd. Ji ft I -'1t iff V' 5isSVW 11 1 "A 4 1 Brw Ik fc- ill oHI fief vilw Esther Pachesky models replica of carhop uniform she wore at Saw Mill Run Boulevard Eat 'n Park. She still works for the restaurant chain.

i'fi-fti John Beale Post-Gazette "i 1 1 lliMWr: '1111 -it rPAV Al IRE FESSAL Children's authors peddle their pages at book conference Robert Edelman "Yes, there are landscape painters dealing with the abstract Issues that other painters face," said Robert Edelman, New York WHO i fk fjltrffa art dealer and critic. He selected the Three Rivers Arts Festival's special show, "The Transforming Vision: Contemporary American Landscape Painting." "To say these artists Just do pleasant work is inaccurate. This work is contemporary and challenging. Every one of the painters came from an abstract background." Edelman, 38, was an abstract painter in the 1970s. Today he Is director of the 7-month-old and eclectic Shea Beker Gallery, 20 W.

57th St. He has a master's degree In painting and worked five years at the Art Institute of Chicago. By Bob Hoover Post-Gazette Staff Writer WASHINGTON.D.C. he American Bookseller's Convention, winding down in the nation's capital today, I 1 is in reality no more than a big business IkJ trade show with all the attendant hype and glitter. Its stars, however, are people who labor in private and who gently are coaxed into the limelight for a couple of days of public display before returning to their work.

They are the writers, many of whom, like Alice Walker, Mary Gordon or Thomas McGuane shyly go through the glad-handing, effusively praising the booksellers in a kind of love feast. The others, from the self-help experts to the cookbook author with another gimmick, blatantly hustle the crowds. There is the growing presence of a third group, however the children's authors. In the industry's self-proclaimed "Year of the Young Reader," most of the major publishers have mounted impressive displays of their children's products and have paraded their authors, including the reticent Fred Rogers before the multitudes. The convention is expected to draw 20,000.

Rogers has a series with Putnam Gosset, "First QE5T BET "No painter in this exhibition is unaware of composition, vision and abstract construction in two-dimensional space. But none is interested In returning to forms of art that were popular before cubism. "Today young painters don't feel Intimidated by Greenbergian theory on abstract expressionism or attitudes that developed in the wake of abstraction." Fred Rogers attended Bookseller's Convention to push his children's literature. Experiences," and appeared here briefly to push the latest two. The children's book business is a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

To gauge its size in one perspective, imagine what a pile of 14 million paperbacks all written by one author would do to your garage. That author is Ann Martin, who at 33, is a one-person industry for Scholastic Press. Her product is "The Babysitters' Club," a series that began in 1986, chronicling the adventures of barely adolescent girls in an ail-American small town. That book, "Christy's Great Idea," told of a group of girls who CONTINUED ON PAGE 23 By Donald Miller I I MA I Game shows put 'PXI in winner's circle MAKING THE ROUNDS It rained again yesterday afternoon at the festival, washing the ink off the Identification markers in PPG Plaza. Carol Ziss, one of the few souls who braved the bad weather to look at the outdoor sculpture, peered intently at the mostly illegible markers and then just as intently at the art.

"I'm alwaysjrying to find some meaning In this stuff, and sometimes there Isn't any, she admitted as she walked away from the blue trees by John something that won the John something outdoor sculpture award. "I always try to think, 'What would look good in my The best place to stand in the Wintergarden is in front of Robin Stanaway's environmental construction a wall of lucite boxes filled with sod. Not a spectator passed without making a comment, ranging from, "Hay, this looks like my yard" to "They should put little animals in the grass, snakes and worms and frogs. the noon news. Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue give KDKA dominance from 4-6 p.m., with Winfrey more popular than Donahue.

The 6 and 11 p.m. "newscasts land in this order: KDKA, WTAE and WPXI, with Channel 4 getting very close to Channel 2 at 11 p.m., and Channel 11 gaining a bit at 6 p.m. One time of day when many viewers aren't watching KDKA is 6:30 a.m. They've yet to develop a taste for "Wake Up with Larry Richert," instead preferring Adam Lynch and his traditional news format on Channel 4 or, to a lesser degree, Delia Crews on Channel 11. Sue Mclnerney, news director at KDKA, said yesterday that the station has a "long-range com-CONTINUED ON PAGE 25 By Barbara Vancheri Post-Gazette Staff Writer the world of television ratings, Alex Trebek and Vanna White have become the couple to conquer.

The May ratings for local TV stations, released yesterday, show that "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" on Channel 11 are the top draws from 7-8 p.m., beating out such formidable competition as Dan Rather's newscast and "Evening Magazine." Not only are people trying to solve the Final Jeopardy puzzler on weekdays, but they're watching the show Saturday nights. Other ratings highlights: Channel 2 has a lock on QU STAGS The Carriage Scarf is part of a new collection of silk scarves inspired by the craft of classic saddlery. It's by Coach Leatherware, the leather accessores manufacturer. The scarves resemble their French counterparts by Hermes, and at $125 for the Coach scarf, the prices are nearly comparable. The scarf is available in four colorful styles at The Coach Store in Fifth Avenue Place, Downtown.

Here's today's lineup of performances at the Three Rivers Arts Festival: CNG: Noon-1 p.m.: Pittsburgh Camerata PPG: Noon-1 p.m.: Erick and Candee Kloss and Quiet Fire PPG: p.m.: Cecil Washington and the Afro-Latin Combo PPG: p.m.: Edwina Lee Tyler and A Piece of the World.