A nostalgia trip, with great French fries on the side.
That’s the feeling when you visit the venerable Dugout Luncheonette in the Southport section of Fairfield, which has been in business since the Truman administration.
Along with great breakfast and lunch fare, the Dugout gives customers a taste of what mom-and-pop restaurants were like more than a half century ago, before fast-food joints put so many local places out of business.
The luncheonette has many loyal fans for its standard dishes, as well as special house items like homemade spicy and sweet sausages, and a delicious variation on hash browns that involves mashed rather than shredded potatoes.
The restaurant was opened by Lebanese immigrant Sassin “Ed” Saloomey in 1950. He ran the place and manned the grill until just a few years before his death at the age of 100 in 2013. Two decades before he passed, Saloomey brought his son Bob into the business.
“I had to pay my dues for 10 years, but he was entitled,” Bob Saloomey says of returning to the restaurant at the age of 45, after the decline of the commercial printing business. The prodigal son knew his dad had created a winning formula that had to be sustained.
“It was a decade of tongue surgery,” he says, laughing, of the countless times he had to stop talking and listen to his father’s restaurant wisdom. Dad taught his son the Dugout is about more than the food it serves.
“He added a lot of personality because he knew his customers could spend their money at many other places,” Saloomey says of making the Dugout feel like a home away from home. Click here to continue reading.
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