Some old stuff

A couple of tidbits I unearthed...

First, the communique, or whatever it was. Tom and I were promoted to the position of general manager. And, no, I never washed dishes at Frick 'n' Franklin's.

Next, my last schedule as a short-order at Kidder Street (#3), as I was off to hold the fort at the soon-to-open South Main Street (#8) store.

Later

The Big Blue F

Remember this picture taken by my brother during the summer of 1988?

No, well, it doesn't matter.

I previously stated that I am the keeper of all things Franklin's Family Restaurants, and below is some proof.

The Big Blue F.

Now take a look at the previous picture again and look at the logo poised above me. Yep, that's that Big Blue F.

Crazy, ain't I?

Later

#1 Demolished

No more #1.

Former Mark II in Edwardsville razed

EDWARDSVILLE - A Sunoco storage facility is expanding after the company demolished a closed Mark II Family Restaurant on Route 11.

The restaurant was demolished Monday, said Edwardsville Code Enforcement Officer David Saraka.

Sunoco is planning to make the now-vacant lot part of a driveway for a storage facility next door, Sunoco spokesman Joe McGinn said.

Another bit of Franklin’s history was hauled away earlier this week as Unit #1---the original Franklin‘s---met the wrecking ball.

Yes, I did a stint there as an assistant manager in 1985 in the months leading up to the store’s front-of-house being totally remodeled. And, yes, you know why I was sent there, to either get the kitchen up to speed, or to get the kitchen staff to walk.

I never met a more defiant group of cooks, Jolly Green Giants all! Once the management of the store lost control of this group, only an outsider could come in and go all Sergeant Hartman (Full Metal Jacket) on them. I played the role perfectly, albeit very loudly, very grotesquely and very theatrically.

Anyway, once the store reopened, we had us a professional kitchen and prep staff doing darn near everything according to specifications.

A bit of history

Edwardsville had what was called the “side kitchen,” which during the ‘80s consisted of some little-used low-boy freezers and tons of counter space. But back in the day when the store first opened it’s doors, the side kitchen was used to serve the customers that had opted for the curb service that was offered to those who parked alongside the south side of the building.

Yes, waitresses actually went out to the curb, took the customer’s orders and then called the order in to the side kitchen. The side kitchen menu was limited to burgers and sandwiches and the like, but the curb service was quite the popular novelty back in the good old days.

During the annual Franklin’s Swim Carnival back in 1982, I filled in at this store on a Sunday morning, my first ever brush with the precursor to today’s point-of-sale cash registers. On the fly with a waiting line staring me in the face, it was like trying to teach Pig Latin to a deaf person in thirty minutes or less.

The other thing that morning that stood out was the breaking news that some lunatic in Wilkes-Barre had gone off the proverbial deep end by killing 13 people with an array of automatic weapons.

Once the auditing department audited our checks from Kidder Street, it was learned that the shooter, George Banks, had lunch at our store only hours before the mass murder and left a complimentary comment of the backside of his guest check. A comment, by the way, that had investigators and prosecutors interviewing the employees that had come in contact with him that afternoon.

He wrote, “It’s nice to go into a restaurant and not be treated like a ni**er.”

And when you consider that perceived racism no matter where he looked led him to mass murder only hours later, that has to be the ultimate in customer compliments. At least, one you should never forget.

Mark

Cottman Ave. on Youtube

Produced and submitted by Drew T. (#10)....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGZdAtlevEU
 

Uploaded by TechnerVideo on Jan 13, 2012

Franklin's Family Restaurant at Cottman and Roosevelt Boulevard. Spring 1988 photos with manager John Banks on the phone during a January 1984 recording. Franklin;'s was a chain of 12 restaurants of Marvin Franklin Enterprises centered in the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton area. This store, unit #10, was in Philadelphia. It opened May 16, 1980 and closed May 16, 1988. Previously, it was a Linton's Restaurant. Afterwards, it became a Friendly's for20 years. It is now the Four Seasons Restaurant.

Awesome.

Mark

Recent Franklin's-related news

If you once toiled away at a Franklin's Family Restaurant, these links could be of interest to you.

From the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader...

After 26 years, Friendly's closes it's Dallas location
From the Scranton Times-Tribune...

Friendly's closes South Abington and Dallas restaurants

Twenty years ago, Friendlys had almost 1,200 units, and uniquely, all company-owned. No franchises. Now they have less than 500. Sad.

Then again, there was this Wilkes-Barre-based restaurant manager some 25 years ago who told those self-impressed boys from Wilbraham, Massachusetts that neither their sub-par menu items nor their ridiculous penchant for cooking out of microwaves would cut it. Yup! That was your author.

Later.

Mark

From the email inbox: Cottman Avenue

Sorry I ain't been around here much. I have other stuff to do like another site, a growing family and a career.

Anywho, look at what arrived in the email inbox...

I worked at unit #10 on Cottman Ave. from October 1982 to January 1988. Dishwasher/Busboy, Short-Order cook, Host, Breader, Janitor and Assistant Manager. I was hired by Scott Davis, the GM, who was raised in Dallas, Pa. His assistants were Jerry Torr, a volunteer fireman and chimney sweeper; and Mark Havarilla and Jim Muholic. During the summer of 1987, I did a stint as Asst. Manager at unit #9 in Montgomerville with Bob Strachko.  Paul Kutney was the District Manager and was not a very nice man. Attached is a photo of Franklin's unit #10 on Cottman Ave. in northeast Philadelphia. It became a Friendly's shortly I took this early 1988 photo.

Drew TXXXXXX
Philadelphia

Hello, Drew!

Listen, you have to help me. I was sent down there all by my lonesome to supervise the cleaning up, the packing up and the shipping out what we felt we needed to save and redistribute. I do not remember any remaining member of that management staff still being employed there, but there was a JXXXXXXXX Rushton.

I was sent there to close the place inside of a few days, and had the cops there three times. Let's see, my duffel bag full of bootleg cassette tapes was stolen in-house. Got it back.

By the way, I was also sent in to shutter #12 at Allentown when it's conversion date rapidly appraoched.

But getting back to #10, I told some dishwasher to discard a case of borderline usable tomatoes and before too long, a horse cop appeared at the back door looking to bitch at whoever was in charge. Turned out, rather than pitch the tomatoes into the garbage hopper as he was instructed to do, that dishwasher decided to toss them at the McDonald's next door. 

And then there was the irate black kid who demanded his last paycheck on the spot, a good week or so before payday. I mention that he was black because he was wearing a Boston Celtics jersey in Philadelphia. I was impressed and figured he had to be one tough out when it came to street-fighting.

I actually cooked with Mark Havarilla at #3 on Kidder Street in Wilkes-Barre before we were both transferred our separate ways. And believe it or not, despite working in a whole other industry, Paul Kutney is my present-day district manager. Yep, he also made his escape from the hospitality industry.

Oh, yeah. When I first entered the store upon my arrival, I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a Franklin's logo on it. And the first thing I spotted was two waitresses leaning against the salad bar, both of which were smoking.

I approached them, told them who I was and why I was there, and that they should be smoking out of the view of customers. And one of the two told me to go fu>k myself. You see, with the end of the store being near, quite a few of the employees on the scene didn't really give a flying flunk anymore. Something that became quite obvious to me after inspecting the unit.

And I'll never forget asking why there was a bed set up in the basement. And I'll not share the answer here.

Drew, feel free to send me your thoughts and your stories, and especially any pictures you may still have.

Later

Mark

1979 Parade Float

As far as I know, this was the only Franklin's parade float to ever have been hauled through a parade route.

Since we were new to downtown Wilkes-Barre, we participated in the 1979 edition of the Wilkes-Barre Christmas parade.

Paul Kutney as Ben Franklin

The pictures were taken in the shadow of the Pepsi warehouse on Hill St., as the parade participants were being lined up in the proper order.

If you look real close like, you'll notice that Ben Franklin has a Marlboro in his fingers. These days, you'd probably be arrested for daring to light up anywhere near a parade. Or should I say, near the children.

That's Fred DuRoss sporting the reindeer costume. And if you've ever laid eyes on him, you know it was a good decision to cover him from head to toe.

I could name just about every employee in those pics, but I will take a pass on doing as much.

Mark

A Franklin's link

By the way, I, we, whomever...we are not alone out here in the Internet ether...

A Facebook fan page: I worked in Franklin's Family Restaurant in Hazleton,Pa

The excerpt:  A page for all Alumni to sign , join , and just keep in touch!

Mark

Hazleton Water Authority's 25% cutback

I never worked a single shift at the Hazleton Franklin's.

But I did attend a few district meetings in the back dining room.

District meetings were always fun. At district meetings, the District Manager would point out in stark, resounding and grotesque terms how completely the attending General Mangers sucked. And then we'd have some lunch.

While once attending one of these necessary annoyances at the Hazleton unit, I was repeatedly raked over the coals for something or other than escapes me now. All the while, I purposely had my fingertip pressing down on a profit and loss statement illustrating the fact that I had just turned a 26.9% pure profit during the previous month...January. That's "pure" profit.

And if you're a current or former restaurateur, you know that a 26.9% pure profit in any given January is pretty much unattainable. And especially in those days, when operators such as ourselves were not publicly traded and reduced to cutthroat practices to assuage the whims of the investors.

Christmas passed, everybody was tapped-out, and as a GM, your mission was to get through January and February without having too much of a profit-and-loss hole to dig yourself out of for months on end. Still, 26.9% in January, and there I was having to eat more needless bullspit.

And with that, you have yet another insight as to why I bolted from the hospitality industry.

Anyway, having never worked in Hazleton, my memory is very fuzzy on this one.

What I remember is that the Hazleton Water Authority was facing some sort of serious dilemma. And as a result, the Franklin's in Hazleton was forced to reduce it's water usage by 25%, meaning it's dishwasher was put on standby.

And with that, the paper plates and plastic utensils first appeared.

Personally, I can't even imagine how such an unthinkable thing was even remotely possible. And I'm glad that Emil had to live and work through that, and not myself.

Managing a restaurant without an operable dishwasher?

Yeah, you can count me out.

Mark

Big Ben hand puppets

Ah, the plastic Big Ben hand puppets.

Throughout my Franklin's career, I probably handed out tens of thousands of these popular trinkets. Perhaps even hundreds of thousands. And all by design.

When you plunk down hard cold cash at a table service eatery, the very last thing you want is some screaming brat seated anywhere near you. And since most parents seem incapable of controlling their kiddies, we sought out to do it for them. Or, at least, to keep those kiddies somewhat amused and quiet.

At the point of being settled into either a booster seat or a highchair, the kids would be treated to kiddie placemats replete with things to color with the 4-pack of crayons we provided. We also provided saltines to nibble on, balloons to blow into and Big Ben hand puppets with which to play with until the food arrived at the table.

And for the most part, screaming brats were a rarity at Franklin's.

Well, mostly.

Mark

Hazleton Franklin's pic

This is a picture of the Hazleton Franklin's, taken after Friendly's had the store's interior remodeled.

The date escapes me, simply because I did not work there at the time. Let's say late-80s.

Near as I can recall, all of the folks in that picture were from Franklin's, with the guy third from the left--John Collins--being from Friendly's.

If you knew me after Friendly's had purchased Franklin's, you know that Collins was lucky I never flipped out and assaulted him. Although, there was that one Sunday morning and that one mop handle that whizzed past his face.

I will never forget these hoddog and ice cream experts making with the profitablity routine 24/7.

Collins: Why do you need two hostesses?

Markie: Waiting line in. Waiting line out. You figure it out.

Standing in the rear and to the right was the long-time general manager of the Hazleton Franklin's, Emil Polchin.

Mark

Danville--the unnamed bus-boy

I can only remember being in the Danville Franklin's a handful of times.

It's a Friendly restaurant now, and it was located just down the road a ways from the Route 81 exit, and just a ways before you arrive at the intersection of Route 11 where the high school sits.

In this picture we have the unnamed bus-boy from, in all likelihood, the late seventies or early eighties.

I love pictures such as these, the pictures that show the grunts at work. You know, the unheralded grunts that worked for minimum wage and constantly had overbearing assholes such as myself climbing up their backs most of the time.

At my store--Kidder Street, Wilkes-Barre--they got next to no respect. In fact, the short-order cooks called them "dish pigs."

Mark

Halloween 1979

Oh, yeah.

Do you want to hear a scary Halloween story? Yeah? Read the card and then we'll talk.

As a cook, I worked one night shift on Halloween and one night shift on Halloween only. And that was just about enough for me.

Having come from the high-pressure, high-volume kitchen that powered the legendary Percy A. Brown & Company's 355-seat cafeteria in downtown Wilkes-Barre, I never really understood why the short-order cooks at Franklin's felt so much pressure so much of the time. Once I got myself acclimated to all things Franklin's, I could handle any and all things thrown at me by the ever-circling waitresses.

I know the great majority of them would have stabbed me if they thought they could get away with it. I know my way of warding off potential distractions during the height of battle was to launch profanities at them. In fact, my brother once claimed that Chef Gordon Ramsey of Hell's Kitchen fame closely copied my foul-mouthed act. Yeah, I was that bad.

But the older waitresses, the more veteran waitresses knew enough to just stay off of my radar screen when the sh*t was hitting the fan in tsunami-like waves. Why? Because they knew that while I was waxing non-poetic all nasty like, the food would come out in a timely manner and their tip income would be maximized.

Long story short, after having toiled away in the high pressure sweat shop of a kitchen at Percy Brown's as long as I did, Franklin's didn't seem like that much of a challenge on most days.

Enter...Halloween 1979.

Whoever it was that came up with the free Big Ben promotion for trick-or-treaters was an absolute marketing genius. Their only shortcoming was, they probably never came under sustained heavy fire while wearing an apron.

That night, for hours on end, the three of us that staffed the back kitchen earned the equivalent of short-order Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars and meritorious service awards not yet thunk of.

The best decision I made was to chase the night shift short-orders into opening the front kitchen (breakfast end), a place they had never before attempted to serve a dinner hour from. We needed the Char Rock (char-broiler), that was that, and all of their many complaints uttered while under direct fire were quickly rescinded. By me.

When I, a veteran of some truly unique kitchen wars, tells you that this was the single most insane shift I have ever worked, that should count for something.

By the Halloween of 1980, the Halloween promotion was altered just a tad. Yeah, in 1980, if you came into the store dressed in your costume, you were given the aforementioned free Big Ben coupon. Most notably, a free Big Ben coupon that could only be redeemed at a later date.

I was there, man. I can't say I enjoyed it much, but I was there..in the kitchen for Halloween 1979.

Mark

Big Ben cards

Ah, the free Big Ben cards.

Over the years, I probably handed out thousands of these. Perhaps tens of thousands.

I had a stash in my wallet. I had a cache tucked into my briefcase. I had them stuffed up above the visor in my car. And I even took some along when I went out for a jog.

If I had a plug nickel for every time the people I encountered asked me about these in-demand freebies, I'd now own huge tracts of land as far as the untrained eye could see.

Honestly, I could really go for a Big Ben right about now.

Mark

#8 opens in 1979

Here we have the #8 ribbon-cutting photo from November 20, 1979.

Forgive me, but, I didn't pay attention to city politics until Wilkes-Barre went and elected an unmitigated disaster personified. Is that Mayor Lisman front and center?

Methinks so.

Mark

41 S. Main Street, W-B: #8

Does anybody recognize that skyline?

Remember those canopies in the background?

That's a picture of the rear of 41 S. Main Street in Wilkes-Barre. Or, as we who were once employed by Franklin's called it...Unit #8. These days, it serves as the headquarters of the Luzerne County GOP.

#8 opened on November 20, 1979, back when downtown Wilkes-Barre was still thriving. Even though I was but weeks away from entering the management training program, I was transferred into this store so as to make certain the kitchen dominated by mostly new hires did not collapse under the weight of being downtown Wilkes-Barre's only sit-down, waitress service eatery.

This store never approached the levels of our top grossing stores, but it's lunch day parts were definitely not for the feint of heart.

While I did not make many friends during my brief stay as a visiting kitchen manager in this store, that kitchen never went under while I was on-duty.

Mark

From Markie's scrapbook: 1987?

As I mentioned before, days off as a retrained Friendly's/Franklin's GM usually meant not having a day to yourself for some much-needed rest and relaxation.

Nope. It wasn't enough in the mind of the corporate types to operate a successful and profitable restaurant. No, they wanted us to be married to our stores.

Mark

WVIA pledge drives

Back in the day when the company was fresh out of the blocks, the general managers that came before my wave lived and died by the following credo: Good food, good service and a clean atmosphere.

It was simple. And I like simplicity.

But by the time I became a GM, the corporate mentality from 1,000 miles away had already inserted plenty of mission creep into the job descriptions of what I'll call "my generation" of GMs.

No longer were the GMs expected to work a 40-hour week and provide the big 3: Good food, good service and a clean atmosphere. Once the little company that could was acquired by the big company that thought it could, 50-60 work weeks were the norm. And a day off would normally involve getting caught up on paperwork, phone calls up the poop shoot (pre-Internet & cell phone), PENNDOT meetings, City Council meetings or whatever far-flung thing some self-important corporate suit thought might affect your unit.

Oh, and the higher-ups were real big on community service, volunteerism and all of that feel-good, sounds good, publicity-generating malarkey. So the way I saw things at the time, if we had to do some volunteer work, we might as well  have had some fun while we were at it.

Enter WVIA TV...
 

L to R: Paul Grillini, MC, Monica Bloom and Virginia Lupton


 This picture was taken in 1988. During the WVIA pledge drives, my Kidder St. employees and I would man the phones on one night. And then we also donated 25 Hambo platters on one of the other nights. Yes, the volunteers always fed the other volunteers. And if you've never had a Hambo sandwich, you have missed out on one of this area's lost treasures

We may not have helped to educate young minds by way of public broadcasting, we may not have helped to financially prop up yet another season of Star Trek or Monty Python, but we did have us some fun.

Mark

Midnight table card

Below we have a table card from (I'm guessing) the very late '70s.

I used to love sitting at district meetings listening to general managers whining about this, that and everything. Meanwhile, only a handful of us were forced to staff and manage the midnight shifts that all too often went all Fort Apache on the staff, management and sometimes customers.

Yeah, we never closed, which was code for 'don't fu>k with Markie,' his staff or his customers after the bars close. I'm just saying.

Mark

From Markie's Scrapbook: December 27, 1990

Not to be totally Kidder-centric...

Mark