Post by Freehold Resident on Oct 9, 2006 13:09:57 GMT -5
It was a diner, but she fondly called it "home"
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/9/06
BY BILL BOWMAN
STAFF WRITER
EATONTOWN — For a quarter-century it was the reigning monarch of Shore area diners.
The Monmouth Queen Diner has been gone since the mid-1980s -- its spot on what once was the Eatontown circle now occupied by an Exxon gasoline station -- but it still is fondly remembered by those who worked there and those who ate there.
And by those, such as Anne Papageorge, who considered it "home."
Papageorge's father, George, founded the diner in the early 1960s with his uncles, Manny and Bill Mavroleon and his cousin, Nick Landis.
Anne Papageorge grew up with the diner, serving as a waitress and, later, hostess in the 1970s and 1980s, while she was in high school and college. Her mother, sister and brother also worked there, she said.
She said it was her father's Uncle Manny who initially found the diner's location.
Manny at the time owned the Freehold Grill on Main Street in Freehold. "He was driving through Eatontown and saw the spot," she said. "It was a farm stand. He liked the location, and thought that, since the racetrack in Freehold brought the grill a lot of business, being near Monmouth Park would bring a lot of business there."
What later became the Monmouth Queen started life as a stainless-steel trailer, she said.
The diner served Shore area residents and visitors around the clock for about 25 years before her father and Manny Mavroleon -- who were by then running the business with Manny's son, Jimmy -- decided it was time to retire, Papageorge said.
"Basically, they decided that they were going to sell," she said. "There were several different interested parties, some were restaurateurs who wanted to keep the diner, and then there was Exxon, which wanted to convert the prime location into what it is today.
"The Exxon deal was a better deal, a more certain deal than the other restaurateurs," she said. "So they sold the property and the business."
Her father went on to work at Fort Monmouth as a procurement officer for several years before retiring, she said. "Manny just flat-out retired, and Jimmy went to Paris to culinary school. Now he's teaching in Freehold and he does catering."
A licensed landscape architect, Anne Papageorge is senior vice president for memorial and cultural development at the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Her job is to oversee the construction of the World Trade Center Memorial, the memorial museum and cultural facilities.
George Papageorge died in 1992, and Manny and Bill Mavroleon died several years later, she said.
In retrospect, Anne Papageorge said, it was better that the diner property was converted to another use.
"Frankly, it was easier for us to see the diner closed, I think, than to see it operated by someone else," she said. "It had been there for so long. I think it would have been harder, to not be able to walk in and walk into the kitchen or walk into the back, because it wasn't ours. It was home."
Anne and her sister have managed to keep some pieces of the diner with them, she said.
"I have a mirror in my living room, and my sister saved a few pieces, different decorations," she said. "She's got a mirror that was hanging behind the cash register."
And when she needs a diner food-fix -- "There's nothing like a diner breakfast," she said -- Anne goes to other local diners such as the All Seasons in Eatontown.
"Some of the All Seasons waitresses were Monmouth Queen waitresses," she said.
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/9/06
BY BILL BOWMAN
STAFF WRITER
EATONTOWN — For a quarter-century it was the reigning monarch of Shore area diners.
The Monmouth Queen Diner has been gone since the mid-1980s -- its spot on what once was the Eatontown circle now occupied by an Exxon gasoline station -- but it still is fondly remembered by those who worked there and those who ate there.
And by those, such as Anne Papageorge, who considered it "home."
Papageorge's father, George, founded the diner in the early 1960s with his uncles, Manny and Bill Mavroleon and his cousin, Nick Landis.
Anne Papageorge grew up with the diner, serving as a waitress and, later, hostess in the 1970s and 1980s, while she was in high school and college. Her mother, sister and brother also worked there, she said.
She said it was her father's Uncle Manny who initially found the diner's location.
Manny at the time owned the Freehold Grill on Main Street in Freehold. "He was driving through Eatontown and saw the spot," she said. "It was a farm stand. He liked the location, and thought that, since the racetrack in Freehold brought the grill a lot of business, being near Monmouth Park would bring a lot of business there."
What later became the Monmouth Queen started life as a stainless-steel trailer, she said.
The diner served Shore area residents and visitors around the clock for about 25 years before her father and Manny Mavroleon -- who were by then running the business with Manny's son, Jimmy -- decided it was time to retire, Papageorge said.
"Basically, they decided that they were going to sell," she said. "There were several different interested parties, some were restaurateurs who wanted to keep the diner, and then there was Exxon, which wanted to convert the prime location into what it is today.
"The Exxon deal was a better deal, a more certain deal than the other restaurateurs," she said. "So they sold the property and the business."
Her father went on to work at Fort Monmouth as a procurement officer for several years before retiring, she said. "Manny just flat-out retired, and Jimmy went to Paris to culinary school. Now he's teaching in Freehold and he does catering."
A licensed landscape architect, Anne Papageorge is senior vice president for memorial and cultural development at the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Her job is to oversee the construction of the World Trade Center Memorial, the memorial museum and cultural facilities.
George Papageorge died in 1992, and Manny and Bill Mavroleon died several years later, she said.
In retrospect, Anne Papageorge said, it was better that the diner property was converted to another use.
"Frankly, it was easier for us to see the diner closed, I think, than to see it operated by someone else," she said. "It had been there for so long. I think it would have been harder, to not be able to walk in and walk into the kitchen or walk into the back, because it wasn't ours. It was home."
Anne and her sister have managed to keep some pieces of the diner with them, she said.
"I have a mirror in my living room, and my sister saved a few pieces, different decorations," she said. "She's got a mirror that was hanging behind the cash register."
And when she needs a diner food-fix -- "There's nothing like a diner breakfast," she said -- Anne goes to other local diners such as the All Seasons in Eatontown.
"Some of the All Seasons waitresses were Monmouth Queen waitresses," she said.