Might’ve been a steak. Or a burger. Maybe a few shrimp. Could have been turkey with mashed potatoes, an endless salad bar, or a ham sandwich on white bread with potato chips and an orange.
It all depends on the decade, really, and that’s because – since Disco was king in America – Andy Wesolowski has been cooking for the Wheeling area’s high-and-affluent folks, and for those cafeteria fans, too. He started as a busboy at Ernie’s Esquire in 1972, climbed the kitchen ladder, and resigned 16 years later as the executive chef.
Wesolowski then started working with Chef Rocco Basil when he became a partner of Christopher’s Cafeteria in Elm Grove from 1988-91, and after it closed, he was hired as the general manager of Hoss’s Steakhouse. Yes, that’s correct, in the same building in the Elm Grove Crossing Mall.
And since Hoss’s suddenly was shuttered in 2011, this food service veteran has been in charge of all food services for Family Service of the Ohio Valley. The non-profit offers a plethora of programs, including the Meals on Wheels operation for Ohio and Marshall counties.
“All of a sudden, I found myself filling out my unemployment papers when I heard about Family Service,” the 69-year-old Wesolowski recalled. “I found out there was no weekend work, I was all ears because I had worked weekends my whole life. Plus, it was all day shift, and that was another first.
“The work is important because of the nutrition we deliver to people who might not get it otherwise,” he said. “I really do enjoy doing this here at Family Service, especially after all those years working it pretty hard.”
The Prime Rib Special
Ernie’s Esquire was the premiere supper club in the Wheeling area because it offered a top-shelf menu and an adult atmosphere with live music, fancy drinks, and a who’s who social scene. Today, the Char House Restaurant operates at the location, and the eatery is attached to a senior living complex.
Item after item, the Esquire’s menu was full of foods no other restaurant in the area offered. Like seafood coquille, and the French Onion soup, and the steaks, prime rib, and center-cut pork chops.
“Ernie’s was one of the few high-class restaurants back in the day, and they had a lot of regular customers that came there from through the entire valley. Ernie’s really had a great following,” Wesolowski remembered. “I started as a busboy the day before New Year’s Eve in 1972, and then I worked New Year’s Eve, and I bet we served at least a thousand people. So, if you stick around for that many customers, you know you’re in the right business, I guess. That’s how I saw it anyway.
“A few years later, the chef left and Ernie (Pandelos) liked how I did things so he made me the chef, and I did that for 12 years,” he said. “Me and Ernie got along just fine, but things changed because I thought he was opening too many places and expanded too quickly, and then I remember interest rates going through the roof and I know that hurt.”
Pandelos opened a number of other establishments in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, including Ernie’s Cork & Bottle on 12th Street on downtown Wheeling.
“We had the Cork & Bottle downtown and that worked out for a while, but the Esquire was never the same,” Wesolowski said. “The Cork & Bottle was very popular at lunch in downtown, and they held a good crowd for dinner most nights, but as the downtown lost business, the Cork & Bottle lost customers.
“The Cork had a big menu, and it had multiple levels, and people ereally liked that it was different han anywhere else,” he said. “Ernie reopened it after a fire and that’s when I got involved a little, but then I left there in 1987 for a new opportunity.”
By the Busloads
Very soon after Oglebay’s Randy Worls and WWVA’s Ross Felton launched the Festival of Lights, the motor coach industry became very family with the restaurants and hotels in the Wheeling area.
The light show, initially a 6-mile driving tour of holiday-theme lights displayed in Oglebay Park, was copied from an event in Niagra Falls in an effort to increase occupancy at Wilson Lodge. The Festival of Lights began in 1985 and since it’s proved so successful the resort will celebrate the event’s 40th anniversary this November.
During the first 10 years or so, bus after bus pulled into the parking lot of Christopher’s Cafeteria, an eatery owned by Jerry Simoncic and a few partners, including Wesolowski.
“It was an opportunity for me to further my career in food service, and to see what it was like to be a part owner of a restaurant,” he explained. “We had a ton of motor coaches during the Festival of Lights and that made a lot of things easier during the rest of the year, but it did die down after a couple of years because the drivers started to find other places to go.
“That’s also when I first met Rocco (Basil), and he was most definitely a one-of-a-kind person,” Wesolowski said with a smile. “And he’s never changed. Nothing ever upset him. He would just go with the flow no matter what the problem was. He’d figure it out and make everything work just fine.
“We worked very well together when it came to getting the (cafeteria) line ready for service, and he was always smiling. You could tell he loved everything about food, and he still does.”
Basil left the Anchor Room, another restaurant staple in the Upper Ohio Valley 40 years ago, and now he currently is the executive chef for the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.
“We did a lot of catering jobs out of that kitchen, and everything was going very, very well until the rent for the building went sky high,” Wesolowski reported. “It was a shame when it closed up.”
A Salad Bar Extravaganza
Wesolowski’s ensuring job search took him to, well, the exact same building.
That because Christopher’s Cafeteria was transformed into Hoss’s Steak and Sea House, and he worked there from 2000 to 2011.
“Yep. Same building,” he chuckled. “How’d that all happen? Well, I applied like six months Christopher’s was closed and after I was hired I had to go t the Canonsburg location to train there for six months.
“I was the assistant manager for a couple of years before I was named the GM and after Cabela’s opened at The Highlands, the business at the Wheeling location was phenomenal. I was named manager of the year one year, and we had 45 stores at the time,” Wesolowski recalled. “But then it suddenly closed after months of rumors. As the GM, though, I was never told anything until the day came when we were done. Just like that.”
Breaking the Silence
There are more than 200 meals served and delivered each day by Family Service of the Ohio Valley, and often the conversation between the resident and the driver most days is the only interaction the client has with another human being.
Each of the meals, Wesolowski defined, includes as many of the food groups as possible.
“Watching the sodium levels is really important, of course, and we watch the levels of everything we deliver to our residents,” he said. “We make sure have as much fresh foods as we can, and with everything we include we make sure we’re in compliance with the state of West Virginia. It’s really a different ballgame when you compare it to the other jobs I’ve had in food service.
“We’re taking care of people here at Family Service, and we take that very, very seriously. It’s one of things I like best about it. It’s all about nutrition,” he explained. “Because our meals could be the only meals our people are eating on a daily basis, we make sure we give them enough for the day and even a little more to cover the weekends.”
