By Bruce Klauber
Whenever people of a certain age gather and share their memories of growing up in the Atlantic City area, the conversation inevitably turns to fondly remembered restaurants.
Sure, people recall Captain Starn’s, Hackney’s, Abe’s Oyster House, Sid Hartfield’s on the Boardwalk (my family called it “Sid Heartburn’s”), or Hi-Hat Joe’s in Chelsea. But almost always, the group ends up talking about Lou’s in Ventnor. “Fondly remembered” is one thing, but if a restaurant can actually be beloved, Lou’s was it. The memories presented here come from those who visited Lou’s over the years and saw fit to share their thoughts on social media.
Located at 5011 Ventnor Ave. at the corner of Ventnor and Nashville avenues, Lou’s opened in 1946. Helen Adelman and her first husband, Lou, bought the property with the idea of opening a delicatessen. According to Adelman’s 2007 obituary, she passed at the age of 97.
In the beginning, she started making soups and Lou made the sandwiches. After a time, Lou’s was a restaurant with a complete menu, serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night snacks, with seating for, according to Adelman, 350.
Lines stretched around the corner during the summer months. It became a family affair, with Adelman’s parents, children and nephews all working in the kitchen or on the floor. Shortly before her passing, Adelman said, “It was really amazing to see the people, all of whom seemed to know each other. There will never be another Lou’s. It was truly an institution.”
“Helen was always dressed to the nines with her flaming red hair and was the most amazing hostess. Besides teaching and supervising all the cooks, she was on the restaurant floor with the customers making certain that everything was perfect. Helen loved her customers.”– Andy Edelman
“We ate at Lou’s every Thursday night! Getting to our table took an extra 15 minutes. It was the place to go to, and we stopped to talk to everyone on the way to our table. When my dad died suddenly in 1964, they sent a huge deli platter, etc. for shiva to my mom. The relationships that formed with regulars were wonderful!” – Barbara Kaplan Moskowitz, Atlantic City High School, Class of 1957
“I have so many stories about my time at the beach with my Aunt Bessie Orloff, who was my grandmother Pearl’s sister. She lived in Ventnor, a few blocks from Lou’s restaurant. It was the custom for us to go to Lou’s every Saturday throughout the year. She would be adamant about being there at 4:45 p.m. so we never had to wait in line. So many fond memories.” – Philadelphia/New York fashion consultant Stephen Kerzner
“If you spent any time down the shore (in Atlantic City, Ventnor, Margate or Longport) in the 1960s through the 1980s, Lou’s was a ‘must go’ family restaurant on Ventnor Avenue. My family would eat dinner there on many Saturday nights before driving uptown to take a stroll on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. My favorite was fried shrimp, french fries and a chocolate milkshake. Yum! – David Joseph Tulsky
“Lou’s had the best cheesecake. Does anyone out there know where I can find the recipe?”– Gail S. Rose
“I loved the coffee milkshakes, so thick and delicious; a spoon could stand up straight in one!”– Steve Danzing
“My grandparents spent every summer in Atlantic City and Ventnor and when we visited them we always went to Lou’s. As a child I ate many fried shrimp there.” – Jessica Baskin Taylor
“It wasn’t Saturday night unless we ended up at Lou’s, sometimes at 2 a.m. Best toasted cinnamon buns ever.” – Donna Lipshutz Levinson
“We ate here often when we were down the shore up until the restaurant closed. I think about it every time I walk or drive by the empty lot.”– Tali Segal
“Always went to Lou’s when in the area. The lines were around the corner.” – Carole Greenberg
“I called Anthony Kutschera, an expert on Atlantic City history, to ask him about the Knife & Fork Inn as he remembered it. He told me he dined there on a summer day decades ago when the air-conditioning wasn’t working well, so he took off his jacket. The owner, Mack Latz, came over and said, ‘Nothing doing.’ My mother wouldn’t have liked that (and) would have lit into Mr. Latz. Mostly, we ate at Lou’s, in Ventnor, an informal, Jewish-style place. I never complained because Lou’s fulfilled my childhood culinary fantasies – it served knockwurst.” – Award-winning food writer Alan Richman
“Our house in Ventnor was just a block or so from Lou’s, a famous casual restaurant where the line always snaked along the sidewalk, especially on weekends. It was a cross between a Jewish deli and full-service restaurant where customers could get anything from corned beef on rye to a jumbo salad to a simple hot meal. A tall glass of lemonade always included a cherry floating at the bottom.”– Philadelphia restaurant critic Phyliss Stein-Novack
In my 60-plus years in the entertainment industry, I’ve probably known and loved hundreds of restaurants. And sure, I remember some of them with a thought like, “Gee, wasn’t it great back in the day?” But with the possible exception of Day’s Deli and Famous Delicatessen in Philadelphia, I have never experienced a restaurant – a venue that serves food, to be clear about it – that has elicited so much passion, so much feeling, and so many wonderful and vivid memories.
There probably isn’t one definitive reason why Lou’s shut its doors sometime in 2006. Stephen Caputo, who worked at Lou’s, said the passing of the final owner, Al, was the beginning of the end.
But according to Donna Senoff, who worked there in the 1980s, “They closed because there was a fire. The insurance picked up the restaurant repairs, but the rental apartments upstairs weren’t up to code and it was too costly to repair. They sold and the next owners opened up a restaurant called Agapé. The restaurant opened in October and needless to say didn’t fare too well.”
Another Facebook poster, Stewart Mash, added, “The new owners who opened Agapé were Seventh Day Adventists and they wouldn’t open on Sunday.”
In the end, though, if books are ever written about things like this, Lou’s likely closed, sadly, because history had passed it by.
Less than one year after Lou’s was boarded up, a real estate notice appeared in the local press announcing Planning Board approval of La Costa at the site, a 32-unit condominium project.
But the project never happened. Today, a four-bedroom, four-bathroom home stands where the restaurant was located. That’s progress; but in this case, it’s not a fitting end to Lou’s, a place that was a legend.
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and a working jazz drummer and vocalist since childhood. He served as Technical Adviser on the Oscar-winning film, “Whiplash,” and on the 2018 Mickey Rourke film, “Tiger.” He has been honored by Combs College of Music and Drexel University for his “contributions to music journalism and jazz performance.”
