Where families went to get ‘Zaberized’
It was around 1962, about a year after Zaberers restaurant opened on the Black Horse Pike in the McKee City section of Egg Harbor Township. To a 10-year-old, the place looked like a gigantic playhouse, decorated with Tiffany lamps, animal characters and all kinds of fascinating kitsch including arcade games, gift shops and plenty of other fun stuff to keep children occupied.
Even though it was relatively new, the place was mobbed and the wait was long; there were so many fun things (some might call it junk), to look at that boredom or restlessness were impossible.
Back then I could only compare it to the super-kitschy wonderland that was the South of the Border motel complex on the North/South Carolina border, which I had visited in 1960. As my father liked to say to my mother back then, “The boy likes the honky-tonk.”
The menu was as vast as the venue. I was particularly fond of the broiled chopped sirloin ($3.95), appetizing even to a young fellow with eating issues.
When our name was called and we were finally seated, it felt as if we had won the lottery. The food was delicious and the portions were, at least to a kid, enormous. Prime rib was their specialty, and for those who wanted a larger-sized cocktail, all a customer had to do was ask that their drink be “Zaberized.”
The payoff came when it was time for dessert. I remember our server coming over to our table and saying, “Mr. Zaberer would like you to have dessert, with his compliments.” Did this mean my father and mother actually knew “Mr. Zaberer?” Perhaps they did; I was never told otherwise.
The history of Zaberers in Egg Harbor Township, as well as the North Wildwood location, is as singular as the venues themselves.
Charles Zaberer, who eventually owned the Egg Harbor Township location, was born in 1918 in North Philadelphia. Brother Ed, who headed the North Wildwood Zaberers, was born the year before.
In the early 1920s, the Zaberer clan moved to Wildwood, where Charles and Ed’s grandmother ran a rooming house that served three meals a day. There, Charles and Ed gained their first experience working in a restaurant.
Ed’s first venture into something that resembled a restaurant happened in 1935. Seeing opportunities on the Wildwood Boardwalk, Ed bought a soft-serve ice-cream machine for $100 and rented a space on the Boardwalk. Six years later, a business that started as a small ice-cream store expanded to five restaurants which served breakfast and sandwiches.
Charles, who had been working as a sign painter, joined the business when he was 23. After serving in World War II, the brothers decided to expand again. This time they leased Holiday’s Restaurant, located just off the Wildwood Boardwalk. Holiday’s could seat 150.
In the 1950s the expansion bug bit again. On Memorial Day weekend in 1955, Zaberer’s Anglesea Inn, a relatively small space that seated only 50, opened off the Boardwalk. By 1960, Anglesea grew to 35,000 square feet and could seat 1,000.
The brothers advertised heavily and began to decorate the venue with the trademark stained-glass windows and lamps, antiques and red wallpaper. The brothers always made sure to meet customers personally, give out gifts to the kiddies and generally made every visitor feel welcomed and special.
The beginning of Zaberers on the Black Horse Pike happened as a result of what the brothers called “a policy disagreement.” At first, Charlie purchased an old bar, then called the Old Gables Inn on the Black Horse Pike. This became Zaberers.
The Black Horse Pike location was a pretty close copy of Zaberers North Wildwood in terms of menu, décor and more importantly, wild popularity.
Though Charles died in 1971, his widow, Rita Ann, and the owner of Philadelphia’s Yellow Cab Company franchise ran the Egg Harbor Township location until it went bankrupt in 1985.
The North Wildwood restaurant was sold in 1988 for a reported $7 million, but the new owner was no Zaberer, and the restaurant went bankrupt in 1990. A year later, the contents of the building were sold at auction.
Along with Captain Starn’s, Hackney’s, and possibly Lou’s in Ventnor, the Egg Harbor Township Zaberers ranks among the most fondly remembered restaurants in this region. It was, in every sense, unique and likely could not be duplicated today.
Here are some comments made on social media by those who remember it well:
“My wife and I had a drink there. I ordered a martini. The waitress asked if I wanted it Zaberized. It came in an iced tea glass. Giant drink. My wife had to drive home.”
– Tom Klem
“My parents would take me to the one on the Black Horse Pike all the time. Fun place.”
– Ron Reeves
“I remember the radio commercial: ‘It’s like being inside a Christmas tree.’”
– Patricia Boggs Popolo
“No matter where you were on the planet, there was a billboard reading, ‘Minutes away, Zaberers.’”
– Ralph Landy
“Yes, as a child, I remember they had coin-operated games to play as the parents mingled and waited on food. They had a Red Baron game that gave you a coin at a certain level. And the food was great, too! Good times.”
– Bob Pinto
“My great grandmother always ordered a Zaberized Tom Collins cocktail before her dinner. We got Shirley Temples.”
– Bill Baker
Could a place like Zaberers in Egg Harbor Township and/or Wildwood exist as a money-making operation today? Not likely. Given how large the restaurants were, the overhead today would be out of sight.
Then there is the competition from the restaurants in the casinos, and the fact that, by and large, families that used to go to places like Zaberers just wouldn’t appreciate the kitsch or the gimmicks of the 1960s and 1970s today. Zaberers still exists, but only as a memory. And that, no doubt, would make Charlie and Ed happy.
Special thanks to Rick Grenda of the “About South Jersey” Facebook Group for providing research on the history of Zaberers.
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 performs both as a drummer and vocalist.
