Bob’s Diamond Grille blog struck a chord in me. The place and the people who frequented it is a subject near and dear to me.
I worked at the “DG” some 53 years ago when I was a junior and senior in high school. I was hired to bus tables but couldn’t do so fast enough for the waitresses. So, I was moved to the kitchen where I washed dishes and made the salads. I worked Friday and Saturday nights and during the week in the summer. I didn’t do a lot of dating on those weekends. By the time I got off work it was late and after washing dishes and making garlic salads I pretty much smelled like a garbage dump. Nonetheless the experience was great and the money I earned much appreciated. I return to it whenever I am in Akron.
The “Diamond was (and, in my view, still is) Akron’s premier steak house. But, in addition to its great steaks, the Diamond was well known for its “Diamond” salad dressing. It was heavy on the garlic, so you know it was good. About once a month I was relegated to the basement of the restaurant to make the dressing. In the basement was an enclosed room that probably once was a storage room or fruit cellar; in any event a windowless and airless room. There I would fill gallon jugs with oil and then stuff garlic buds into the jugs. I do not recall the proportions, but by the end of the session it was difficult to tell, by smell, the difference between me and a garlic bud. It kept vampires (and girls) away from me for years. At one time the dressing was bottled and sold to customers for home use.
The owners of the DG are the Thomas family. The current proprietors are brothers Nick and Ted Thomas. The restaurant was started by their father in the forties, I believe. Nick Thomas, the senior living Thomas and my brother, Bob’s Dad, were good friends, which is why, as Bob mentioned in his Blog, the Diamond was a favorite place of his father’s. It is also how I got the job there. Nick was a task master and put up with no nonsense from any of his employees, including his friend’s brother. The chef, at the time, was an older man named Dave who likewise put up with no nonsense. He and Nick expected everyone to do their jobs efficiently and correctly at all times. The waitresses at the Diamond were then, and always have been, extremely professional. Service at the DG is never an issue. Nick always saw to it that customers were served promptly. From Dave I learned that one does not put a sauce on a good piece of meat. Dave- would explode when a customer wanted his or her steak well done and/or wanted A-1 sauce or the like to put on it. “Ruins a perfectly good piece of meat” he would say. “If they want hamburger they should go to Swenson’s.” (Swenson’s is another classic Akron restaurant albeit a drive-in hamburger restaurant.) Though I must have rebelled against the demands at the time, I am certain that working for Nick and with Dave I learned a lot about how to work and created a foundation for establishing my own work ethic
Nick has always been a unique character. His loyalty to his friends is unyielding, and to know him is to love him, but he must be an enigma to those who don’t know him well. His demeanor is gruff – you would not find him working at a swank New York restaurant. When a customer comes in before a table is available for them, Nick’s greeting is “take a seat at the bar and we’ll call you when a table is available.” These instructions were given in a not particularly warm and fuzzy manner. Of course that meant you were to have a drink at the bar before you got to the table where you should also have a drink. The money is in the booze, after all. But good customers don’t mind a bit because there is always someone you know at the bar and lively, usually sports oriented, conversations ensue. The Diamond was and is the place to go to see friends and have a great meal.
When I worked there, Nick was dating his wife to be and sometimes, during my work shift, I would be tasked with going to pick her up and bring her to the restaurant. Their dates were spent at the “store.” I didn’t mind the break from the kitchen and moreover, I got to drive Nick’s car, a ’56 T-Bird. I was a happy teen age chauffer.
In the late fifties there was a group of guys, probably two dozen or so, who were Akron’s young Turks who used the Diamond as a club house. This included my brother. These guys had gone to high school, college or law school or all of these together and they were, then, the young businessmen and professionals of Akron. There were doctors, dentists, lawyers, salesmen, car dealers, and contractors in the group, practically someone from every walk of life. As far as I could tell they were all really good guys and most of them stayed friends for life. Unfortunately, there numbers have thinned, but in their day they surely had some good times at the Diamond Grille.
Over the years some of these friends of my brother, Nick for one, became my mentors and I looked at them as my own friends. A few years ago I had occasion to invite Nick to a dinner at which I was speaking where I pointed out to the group there how important he had been to me as my first boss. I think he enjoyed that and I certainly did.
I get to Akron once or twice a year for about two or three days each trip and I end up eating at the DG, always once and often twice on each trip. Underscoring the quality of the food there is the fact that when the PGA tour is in town for the Bridgestone tournament at the Firestone C.C. almost all of the golfers eat at the Diamond. The place is so popular for the golfers that the Thomas’s ask their regular customers to stay away that week so that they can take care of the out of town crowd. You can expect to hear the golf tournament commentators mention the Diamond on the air during the tournament.
Bob mentioned the décor of the restaurant. I believe that it has been changed only once since I worked there. The current look probably dates to the early seventies and is still the “new look.” Any change in the décor would be at a great risk as its retro appearance is a part of its charm.
Nick’s brother Ted is a year or two younger than I and he and I were Lone Star fraternity brothers. The last time I was there, Teddy’s daughter was the hostess and so a third generation is now involved in operating the Diamond. I hope there are Thomas’s willing to continue the Diamond tradition.
The connections of Webners to the Diamond Grille are full of great memories. I am sure that Bob’s mother could regale him with stories from the DG. I know that my wife and I have many and they are all positive, usually humorous and reminiscent of good times. Bob’s blog brought back a lot of memories and I have probably taken too much space to relate my feelings for the place, its owners and its denizens. Just thinking of the place makes my mouth water. Maybe I’ll see you there the next time I’m in town? The Diamond Grill is not to be missed if you are in Akron, Ohio. Its food and its character are the best.
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A stranger happened to be walking by in the opposite direction, and when he saw my grin he smiled right back. His reaction, in turn, made my smile a bit wider.
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How it got into our house is anybody’s guess. I’d guess it was a green tree frog — about the size of a half dollar, with long webbed toes and excellent adhesive abilities. Kasey noticed him, too, and was starting to pay the little guy an uncomfortable amount of attention. I got a dish towel, draped it over him, gently picked him up, and took him outside and dropped him onto the grass. He quickly hopped under some nearby bushes and was gone, probably on his way back to the tree at the corner of our house.
Then my thoughts wandered to what’s happening in Syria and other troubled places, and I thought: I’m lucky to live where I can take my dogs for a quiet walk in the pre-dawn hours without risking life and limb.
