One Century, One Family - Ernie’s Texas Lunch, 1921 to 2021

good evening my name is jean greene i am on a board of directors of the adams county historical society i've had the opportunity to host many of our in-person programs over the years and hoping that you folks are enjoying our online programs and will continue to contribute to the adams county historical society our program tonight highlights the many ethnic groups that are part of adams county history many people think of this area as primarily pennsylvania dutch as well as german there are dozens of other groups that have settled here run business and enriched our community immigrants from greece have found gettysburg in particular a welcoming area and have brought their families here to settle and to run many local businesses tonight we honor the greek community with a three three-generation story of business success ernie cranius named after his grandfather also ernie cranius is now the owner of ernie's texas lunch the restaurant this year is celebrating their 100th year anniversary ernie grew up here in gettysburg and graduated in 1973 from gettysburg area high school ernie played for a band for 20 years blue tonic i do believe there were some other names for the band also he also was involved with the drummond bugle corps the hanover lancers the adams county historical society wishes ernest texas lunch a wonderful 100th year anniversary ernie's texas lunch one century one family but before we were ernie's texas hot weenies texas hut wiener lunch texas hot winner shop texas lunch charlie's texas lunch the texas lunch ernie's texas lunch i know it's a lot of different names for one place but it was 100 years we changed our mind a couple of times here's the three i was starting from the left that's my grandfather ernie he opened texas hot weenies in 1921 at 55 chambersburg street he would move twice landing where we are now and run it until 1953 when he passed away the next guy his son charlie my dad took over in 1953 ran it for his mother until 1960 then bought her out changed the name to charlie's texas lunch and ran it until he retired in 1981. the last guy that's me ernie i'm named for my grandfather i took over in 1981 changed the name to ernie's texas lunch and that's what we've been ever since now i'm going to tell you the whole story everything starts in the mountains of greece a small village called pizzula about 200 miles northwest of athens my grandfather ernie and his first cousin bill were in a farming family and they wanted to come to north america to make a better life for themselves bill had an uncle who owned a restaurant in canada and he had plans to come to work with him my grandfather ernie wanted to come and test his fortunes in the united states the two of them made their way to the seaport of patras about 200 miles away probably by train they boarded the steamship ivernia on july the 29th and set sail for north america this was only three months after the titanic had sunk in the atlantic ocean i often considered the courage of the boys taking this trip knowing the fate of the people on the titanic and then i thought maybe they didn't even know about it nonetheless they made it across the ocean they got to new york on august the 16th ported at ellis island and soon were in the united states one of the largest greek settlements in the united states was in lowell massachusetts the boys went there ernie met and stayed with the cargus family a family who would play an important part in his life later on bill went on to canada to join his uncle in the restaurant business when ernie left low he worked his way south through new york into pennsylvania eventually landing in gettysburg he worked many restaurants in and around the gettysburg area learning management skills that he would use later on he befriended a man named steve savarnas who owned the deluxe restaurant in gettysburg steve had the inside scoop on the opening of a storefront on chambersburg street and in the fall of 1921 ernie opened texas hot weenies at 55 chambersburg street a single lunch counter diner and we're off and running the lunch counter would be an instant success ernie had a big personality fun loving spirit was hard working and was a pretty good cook he kept late hours and often after hours would you know celebrate the day but the problem was he was right next door to the eagle hotel oftentimes residents at the hotel would complain that noise from the little restaurant next door was keeping them awake at night george lynch the owner of the hotel filed charges against ernie for operating a disorderly business he was brought up to the jp on charges and released on two hundred dollars bail put up by his friend john highland owner of the candy kitchen in gettysburg now two hundred dollars then was three thousand dollars in today's money that was a pretty big deal but he and mr lynch reached an agreement and ernie was allowed to stay in business ernie's business was thriving and after a few years it was time for him to settle down get married and raise a family he had stayed in contact with the cargus family in lowell massachusetts and he contacted them and made arrangements to marry their daughter emily she was 13 years his junior and at age 29 and she at 16 he went to lowell and in a civil ceremony they became man and wife when he returned to gettysburg he also returned with her four brothers george angelo paul and jimmy to help him run the restaurant now that's what i call a dowry in october of 1925 emily gave birth to a daughter gladys sadly she would die of pneumonia on new year's day 1926. but later that year on october 29th 1926 emily gave birth to his son he was named after his grandfather per greek tradition costa dinas anastasios cranias charlie cranius we'll be talking about him later in march of 1927 ernie moved his thriving business across the street to 62 chambersburg street on the corner of washington street this increased the size of his lunchroom from one counter to two counters and also got him out of a continuing contentious relationship with george lynch at the eagle hotel he was situated in front of the monarch billiard parlor this was in the middle of prohibition and the story goes that if you knew the right people you could go behind the billiard parlor and buy bootleg alcohol ernie supposedly contributed to this inventory with wine that he made at home on june the 4th 1928 in a ceremony at the adams county courthouse in gettysburg ernie became a naturalized citizen of the united states the following year on september 15 1929 emily gave birth to his second child a daughter mary lou cranius and we'll be talking about her a little later too ernie's popularity and the popularity of his little restaurant continued to grow he was even included in the who's who section of the gettysburg times a section of the paper which quote introducing you to the live and progressive firms and people who make up the business interest of gettysburg and surrounding territory end quote the article applauded his business his hard work his cooking skills and his pleasant personality and included a poem written by one of his customers which reads you're welcome here we're full of cheer we have no cause for sorrow so eat your fill and pay your bill and call again tomorrow artistry in october of 1932 with the anticipation of the repeal of prohibition ernie moved two doors up to the former home of dixon drug store to 58 chambersburg street the expanded space gave him room for a lunch counter and tables tables that he would need to get a beer license and tables that he also felt he would need to create more of a lunchroom atmosphere at the time it was not socially acceptable for ladies and children to go into bar rooms and he wanted to be sure that he was a lunchroom first and a dispenser of alcohol second he even painted the words ladies welcome on his front window to help drive home the point prohibition wasn't officially repealed until december of 1933 but president roosevelt signed an amendment to the prohibition act in the spring allowing the sale of low alcohol content beer so that quote people could enjoy a beer or two end quote this advertisement from the gettysburg times shows ernie starting to sell beer in june of 1933. in march of 1937 ernie and emily their 10 year old son charlie and their seven-year-old daughter mary lou joined cousin bill and the group returned to greece they spent some of their seven month visit touring athens but most of the time there they spent in the village of pessula three very significant things happened while they were there cousin bill got married as you can see my grandfather ernie really enjoyed celebrating secondly bill and ernie had a breezy or a fountain built in the village up till down the village of pizzula didn't have running water now it did and also ernie met his nephew tommy he was nine at the time and the two of them really bonded and we'll talk a lot more about tommy later ernie and the family returned from greece in october of 1937 in september of 1938 he opens a second location on carlisle street in hanover the texas lunch in hanover is run by his brothers-in-law paul and george cargus after a year and a half of running the business they sell to john madros who's associated with the famous texas lunch on broadway and york street in hanover there's probably a side story there but i don't really know it they come back and focus on the business in gettysburg son charlie graduates from high school in 1944 he's not really interested in the restaurant business he joins the navy for a few years comes home attends gettysburg college for a year in 1950 he goes to philadelphia to attend radio and broadcast school in 1951 with his son charlie off pursuing other interests ernie sponsors tommy the nephew from greece to come to gettysburg and live with the cranius family on washington street tommy is the nephew that ernie had met in greece during their visit in 1937 he and tommy bond he becomes ernie's second son and he comes to the texas lunch to help ernie and emily keep the restaurant running when ernie dies unexpectedly in 1953 while on vacation charlie returns to the restaurant to help his mom keep things going in the meantime he meets my mom patti mennor she's divorced and has two children the two married and have twin sons myself ernie and my brother rick though his return to the restaurant was supposed to be temporary charlie likes being his own boss and he also likes the financial security of the restaurant now that he has a family to raise he would run the business with tommy for his mom until 1960 and then he would buy her out in 1960 and change the name to charlie's texas lunch this is a picture of my grandmother emily and her daughter mary lou my aunt emily would continue to help out at the restaurant until she passed away later in 1960 and lou would continue to help out until the middle sixties when she went to work for bigam and raffensburger attorneys as a legal secretary but she would continue to be a daily presence in the restaurant for a long time though named charlie's texas lunch the little diner was very much a partnership between charlie and tommy cranius my dad was a free spirit and tommy was much more interested in cooking and building the business that his uncle had started mommy's work ethic cooking talents and pleasant personality were very very important to the success of charlie's texas lunch for two decades my dad charlie had a winning personality and a good heart and it made him very popular in the town of gettysburg and that popularity was very important to the success of the little restaurant also though at odds sometimes in their management styles the truth is charlie cranius and tommy cranius were the perfect match in this picture taken in 1959 are my dad charlie on the left tommy on the right and jim cranius in the middle jim's dad bill was my grandfather's first cousin who had accompanied him from greece in 1912. something else significant in this picture is the reflection in the windows it shows the eagle hotel eberhard apartment building across the street that building would be destroyed by fire in 1960 the loss of that building had quite an impact on downtown gettysburg especially chambersburg street chambersburg street just lost some of its flare with the loss of that building and also many of the residents of that building were customers of businesses on chambersburg street other challenges for smaller restaurants in downtown gettysburg was the advent of fast food restaurants and chain restaurants mostly on the south end of town to cater to the tourists but a lot of local people people who would usually shop and eat downtown went out to try them out it was hard for businesses downtown automobile travel cars became less expensive people were more prone to travel outside of town for a night out rather than limit themselves to downtown gettysburg despite all of these challenges my dad's personality and perseverance and tommy's hard work and creativity kept the restaurant going not just going but it actually prospered in the 1960s in 1962 my dad orchestrated a huge remodeling project for the restaurant giving it not only a facelift on the storefront and inside but also significant changes in equipment and upgrades and food service on the front of the restaurant he had a wrought iron railing a latticework awning over the top of the restaurant grid worked in the windows and flower boxes i think they were my mom's idea aside he made a lot of changes to make the dining room seem brighter and more open in 1970 my dad hired a couple of really cool high school kids to come into work for the summer that's me on the left and my twin brother rick on the right the two of us would split at 7 am to 3 p.m dishwashing shift monday through saturday one of us working 7-11 the other working 11-3 that was 24 hours a week for a cool 15 bucks a piece that was big money back then of course all the excitement happens from 10 45 to 11 15 when both of us were there and shifts were changing rick reminded me of one time when we were snapping towels at each other and one of us hit the switch of the dishwasher while the doors were open and sprayed the whole kitchen with hot soapy water we thought it was a riot my dad knew not so much rick would work that summer and the following summer but then leave i would stay every summer until i graduated from high school and then would start full time in 1974. there would be a lot of changes for the little hot dog restaurant in the 1970s beginning with tommy leaving to start his own business his brother had come from greece in 1971 and the two of them wanted to open a pizza shop at the site of the whistle stop restaurant that was at the train station on washington street in gettysburg i can still remember in 1972 during the summer when i was working tommy came to me with a waitress pad and on the back he had written two names and he said to me in his greek accent ernie which one you think sound better tommy's pizza or tnk pizza stop and i said ah tnk pizza stuff it's a no-brainer it's at the railroad tracks next stop pizza it's really clever it's a great idea obviously i chose wrong i was still flattered that at the age of 17 he even bothered to ask what i thought and then i thought maybe he decided he'd ask me what i thought and then do the opposite but either way i was flattered that he asked nonetheless in june of 1973 tommy left and opened tommy's pizza and that rest of that is history it became the most popular pizza restaurant in the town of gettysburg after tommy left my dad was short-handed at the restaurant i helped out in the summer of 1973 after i graduated from high school and then went to college for a semester but i decided that i wanted to go to work and make some money so i could buy a car so i left college and started working full-time at the texas lunch in 1974. when i came to work full time i would do the morning shift and pop would do the evening shift i'd open up at six o'clock cook breakfast until lunch time and then around 11 go out front do the hot dog grill over lunch hour until pop came in to do the evening shift i was getting to be a pretty good breakfast cook a regular customer named jim calbal wrote this really nice piece for us that appeared in harrisburg patriot in 1976 about a third generation taking over a small restaurant in gettysburg later in the 1970s pop started to grow me seriously to take over the business i would run over to the arctic locker every morning to pick up the day's hamburger in the late 70s bob weichert bought the business changed the name to weikert's meat market and hired linda schreiner to be their secretary i thought she was really cute after several months of flirting i finally got her to go out on a date with me and late in august we went on our first date and we never looked back later on in the 70s my dad bought the building that housed the restaurant in 1980 my mom passed away and later in 1980 my dad did a big remodeling project at the restaurant now that he owned the building he added a store room and a food prep area to the back sorely needed we were very cramped for space after 28 years of owning charlie's texas lunch my dad decided to retire so in january of 1981 i took over other than adding my name to a couple of licenses into the business checking account it was a handshake agreement and i would rent the restaurant from pop for three years in april of 1982 i married linda and in september of 1982 she came to work with me at the restaurant to help me run it linda had a shining personality she brought fun and energy to the business and touch the hearts of everyone staff and customers alike she was my rock i played in bands at the time and sometimes my attentions weren't where they should be she always knew when to reel me in together we were very successful running a little restaurant linda and i bought the restaurant and the building from my dad in 1984 and we wanted to make it ours so we remodeled the dining room mostly just a facelift new countertops new seating we did put a bench seat around the big table in the back and we added fake brick and fake wood paneling it was quite the thing back then the place looked really nice and it was our little restaurant towards the end of the 80s into the early 90s i wanted to have a 50s style diner i really like johnny rockets a place we saw down in baltimore i even stole their logo for a while as you can see here i couldn't decide the details of how i wanted to remodel i wanted to copy them but not exactly i was watching warren beatty's dick tracy movie early one sunday morning we rented a hollywood video remember that written videos anyway i was watching it and dick tracy walks into mike's diner and there's my diner and i screamed linda linda here's our diner i made her get up and come look at it she wasn't quite as excited about it as i was then we got to work white walls black table tops black floor red seating we had our 50s done linda and i had a lot of fun running our little 50s diner i changed the name to ernie several years earlier i think when i first took over i felt like i was still running my dad's place and it seemed almost disrespectful to put my own name on it so i just called it the texas lunch for a while but finally i relented and we changed the name to ernie's texas lunch legal after we did the 50s remodel we hired a local artist to design us a logo that had even more of a 50s feel we had a lot of fun with signage different displays things that made the place seem old-fashioned we even got this clock from my brother rick he had it safekeeping for a long time it was a clock that hung on the wall in the 1930s when my grandfather first moved into this location we've tried to keep up with the times we've added more comfortable padded seating we even have a modern point of sale system complete with online ordering and gift cards you know all the latest stuff but we still try and hang on to that old-fashioned diner feel we are what we are we're a hot dog and hamburger joint with a pretty good breakfast and people know what to expect when they come in sadly we lost london of cancer in 2014 and she's not here to celebrate this 100th anniversary with us but we remember what she wanted the place to be she always wanted to be fun and it was always important to her that people enjoyed the experience of eating ironies as much as they enjoyed the food they were eating in earnest i haven't worked too much day to day since we lost her i oversee a very dedicated staff who care very much about me my little restaurant linda's memory and my family's legacy i'm truly blessed and so that's our story let's take a quick look back here's some menus from the 1930s here's a menu complete with a carbon copy of the typewritten specialist for the day next is the 60s menu of my dad's with the discontinued items scratched out with the magic marker next is our first 80s menu with the prices handwritten and then the duck mascot on our breakfast menu and then there's two versions of my long-winded menu six pages that describe each item in depth it was quite a read and here's our modern menu shorter and a lot easier to navigate and of course our website and our online menu let's take a look out front at the building in 1912 this is what it looked like this is long before ernie came in 1932. then in the 40s ladies and gents and then in the 50s and then this in the 60s and then this in the 80s and then this in the 90s and then this the remodel for the 100th anniversary almost complete and then if we take a look inside here's the two lunch counters at 62 chambersburg street and then next door here it is in the 40s here it is in the 60s here it is in the 80s and here it is now when i look back over the 100 year story that i just told you the thing that stands out to me the most the most amazing thing of the whole century is how it started 17 years old my grandfather in this beautiful little village in the mountains of greece and it's a gorgeous place i've been there but he wanted to come to america and make better for himself he lied about his age so he could come here and then at age 26 in 1921 he opens texas halloweenies here in gettysburg he instantly becomes popular and instantly becomes an important member of the business community here in gettysburg his 100 year love affair has left ernie's texas lunch tommy's pizza and four-square beer company amongst other businesses and other memories i am very honored to tell the story and very privileged to be a part of it to this town for supporting me my business and our family for a hundred years and for all of you who have listened to this story all i can say is in greek thank you very much you

Channel: Adams County Historical Society at Gettysburg

Views: 1,046

Rating: 4.9272728 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: HJnp0QhOupk

Length: 23min 14sec (1394 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021