Lakewood Lore

Oldtime party center had real country atmosphere

A celebrated pioneer party center that faded away more than a half century ago is still warmly remembered by the many Lakewoodites who dined and danced there.

It was called Regnatz's and was situated at 3242 Warren Road, just over the Lakewood line in West Park.

In business from 1922 till 1941, it catered banquets and wedding and anniversary receptions, always providing live music for dancing in its main hall, and, on its ample nine acre grounds, accommodating gala summer picnics and fall clambakes.

Regular menu features were its famous chicken, duck and T-bone steak dinners served family style.

"But there were other favorites, too," recalls Dorothy E. Regnatz, daughter-in-law of the founders, Anton and Caroline Regnatz, who opened the business 70 years ago.

"Caroline's noodles, soups, apple strudel, ice cream and sherbet, all homemade, also were the rage. She was noted for her bread-and-butter pickles because of their crispiness. She prepared her own watermelon rinds. She would sweet-sour them."

Owners Anton and Caroline came to America from Germany before World War I. They met and married in Cleveland and started in the food business in 1918 as caterers from their home on Franklin Boulevard near West 47th Street.

Anton originally was a mason and bricklayer. Caroline was the spark plug and brains when it came to the food operations, Dorothy remembers.

Both of the founders were hard workers. They decided to relocate on Warren Road -- which at that time was considered "out in the country" -- after Phil Marquard, a close friend and well-known home builder of the period, made them a proposition. Marquard owned the site. He said he wouldn't sell the land, but would allow the Regnatzes to build a dining hall on it if they would give him a percentage of the food profits. The couple agreed.

The new hall was put up and Anton and Caroline moved into an old farmhouse already on the property. They added rooms to the house for making noodles and pickles, which they served to their diners and also distributed to neighborhood grocery stores and bakeries

At first, because the location was considered so remote, the restaurant was open only during the summer months, according to daughter-in-law Dorothy, who worked there as a hostess.

The Regnatzes had two children -- Joseph and Tony. Both helped their parents. Dorothy, now 80 and living in Berea, was married to Joseph, the older boy, who, before he died in 1971, was manager of the enterprise. Tony, who is 78 and lives in Lakewood, worked there as a waiter.

Everything was by reservations, with innovative, tireless Caroline setting a fast pace and making the rules, Dorothy pointed out.

"Women were not permitted to smoke in the dining room, and no liquor was served as long as she lived."

It seemed to Dorothy that the establishment never had to buy anything. In the back, Caroline had a garden for vegetables and a greenhouse for table flowers, and, until 1932, she raised and plucked her own chickens on the premises.

"She had large baking ovens in the basement of the dining hall for making her dinner rolls and pastries," Dorothy recollects. "She saved all her fats and grease, which she rendered into soap, and she washed all her table linens and napkins in her own laundry room."

During its heyday in the late '20s, a total of 30 employees worked at Regnatz's and served up to 1,000 persons at one time for sit-down dinners. So many customers arrived in limousines that she arranged a designated eating area just for chauffeurs.

There were three side rooms besides the main dining hall. The latter had a stage for bands that played for dancing, and for a long time the live music originating from Ragnatz's was carried over local radio.

Devout Catholics, the owners were generous in their church catering activities. They employed underprivileged youths from St. Anthony's Boys' Home and even supplied them with a dormitory above the pickle and noodle addition.

The couple had two other ventures while operating their Warren Road spot. But these were short lived. One was a restaurant at Cedar and Fairmount, which they opened in 1929 and kept for three years. The other was a restaurant and party center in two leased buildings on Euclid Avenue near East 36th.

After Caroline's death of a brain aneurysm at age 54 in 1936, Anton continued to run the Warren Road operations. However, he was soon beset by financial difficulties and died in 1939.

Two years later the business was sold to Chicago entrepreneurs who continued it for a few years as the Show Boat Nite Club. In 1954, St. Mary's Romanian Orthodox parish of Cleveland, the oldest and largest of its kind in the United States, bought most of the original Regnatz property for $100,000.

The parish then relocated from Detroit and West 63rd into a new church edifice that it erected on the premises at 3256 Warren Road in 1958 at a cost of $500,000.

Immediately south of the church, a Spanish-style stucco home that had been put up by builder Maquard for his daughter in the '20s became St. Mary's rectory, which it remains today.

Just south of the rectory, a sprawling building that provided living quarters for the Marquards in their later years is today rental property comprising 16 apartments. Before St. Mary's came on the scene, this building was acquired by an owner who renovated it for its present use.

Alas, however, the old Regnatz dining hall, which later became St. Mary's social hall, had a worse fate.

On July 8, 1973, it burned down in a spectacular fire that sent flames shooting up 100 feet in the sky. Within two years St. Mary's replaced the landmark facility with a new hall, which adjoins the church.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post March 12, 1992. Reprinted with permission.

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