(Publisher’s Note: We decided to re-publish this feature article with Chef Rocco Basil at the beginning of the Labor Day weekend to remind local readers of what is possible in the future. We believe most would agree a rebirth of such an eatery would be a huge hit in the Upper Ohio Valley.)
It’s where the gentleman popped the big question; where promotions and graduations were celebrated; where prom dates began; and where the best meals ended. It was the Anchor Room in Beech Bottom, W.Va., a village community that wasn’t changed when the restaurant opened in 1963 because the eatery rested right along W.Va. Route 2 between Wheeling and Wellsburg. The same was true, a Beech Bottom native explained, once it closed.
“There’s about as much happening today in Beech Bottom as there was when I lived there as a kid,” said Chef Rocco Basil. “Nothing changed once it was opened, or after it closed. But Beech Bottom always has been a quiet town. But it did make a difference in my life; that’s for sure.”
That’s because Basil, one of today’s most popular chefs in the Upper Ohio Valley, was hired by Anchor Room owner Lou Feola to wash dishes soon after his high school graduation. Basil was a curious chap at 18 years old, and he pestered his co-workers until their surrender.
“I always hurried to get my work done with the dishes so I could go to the kitchen side to put them away and ask the cooks on the line what they were working on,” Basil remembered. “I asked a million questions, and they finally told me that if I was finished with the dishes, I could start helping them. That’s when I started asking even more questions.
“There was a chef, and then a lot of other cooks working the line,” he said. “That’s where I learned a lot of what I do now, and that’s because of how large the Anchor Room’s menu was and how everything was prepared there. That’s how I got involved with the industry because I found there wasn’t anything else that made me that happy.”
The Vittles
The Anchor Room was known for its seafood, and especially those Tuesday, evenings when it was all about the lobster and the beef.
“Well, the lobster was actually langostino, but that’s a cousin to the lobster,” Basil said. “But those nights? Wow. We would serve as many as 250 people, easy.”
Along with the long list of seafood options on the menu, there were hand-cut filets, ribeyes, and strip steaks, too, and the pastas were plentiful. The a’ la carte cuisine would change, Basil remembered, when Feola would have a dish he enjoyed in Columbus, Pittsburgh, or Cleveland.
“Lou made sure everything that left that kitchen was exactly what the customers ordered, and people really appreciated that,” Basil said. “Lou also evolved the menu and the specials each week, and people really enjoyed that, as well. Quality was very important to him, and in his mind, there was only one way to prepare and present those dishes.
“As long as you did the work the right way, Lou was a great person to work for because he showed his appreciation for hard work,” he explained. “We also went to a lot of other restaurants in the region so we could see what they were serving, and he would bring those dishes to the Anchor Room. But he always wanted to do them better. That’s how Lou was, and the customers absolutely loved it.”
Ahead of His Time
Louie C. Feola Jr. was just 69 years old when he passed away Oct. 31, 2006, in Wheeling, W.Va.
Not only did he open the Anchor Room in Beech Bottom in the early 1960s, but Feola added a location Follansbee in 1976.
“Lou’s father had a bar on the property in Beach Bottom that literally had a dirt floor,” Basil explained. “Then Lou decided to expand it, put real floors in, and start the Anchor Room on that property. But then he had the idea to expand even more, and that’s why he bought the property in Follansbee. Lou was quite an entrepreneurial kind of guy.
“But when the restaurant was still in Beach Bottom, Lou lived in the house that is on the hillside above where the main entrance was to the Anchor Room,” he said. “He used to have breakfast in his house and then come to the restaurant without even going outside. That’s the way he liked to do business, and he was very involved with every aspect.”
But Feola wasn’t finished. Before his death, the entrepreneur added to the number of tourist attractions in the Friendly City, and that is why, when Basil travels past what remains of the original Anchor Room location, the sight saddens him.
“I just think it’s a shame because the Anchor Room was an icon for decades,” the chef said. “Lou was a man ahead of his time. Not only did he have the places in Beach Bottom and then Follansbee, but he then went into Wheeling, got very involved with the Italian Festival, bought the Valley Voyager for river cruises, and then opened Lou’s Landing on a barge by the Wharf Parking Garage.
“He begged the city to tear down the Wharf and build an amphitheater so they could have things like music festivals, but the people with the city at that time said that Lou was nuts,” Basil added. “A few years before Lou passed away, someone suddenly had the idea to tear down the parking garage and build an amphitheater so they could start having music festivals. Wonder where that idea came from?”
