Eden Valley Enterprises -- Lost Restaurants -- The Mail Bag

An e-mail from Andrea Ranta April 11, 2020

In the late 1960s, Boukair's was still a popular place to go in the Playhouse Square area for people attending theater, going out to dinner or concerts, or those finishing off their evening from bar crawling in the Cleveland Flats. I had plans with some girlfriends to go out for the evening and we were all in our late teens, early 20s. Later, we decided to stop at Boukairs and check it out since none of us had ever been there before, but had heard so much about it since it was a legendary institution! Having some ice cream to top off the evening sounded just right. It was late in the evening, but the place was very busy. We were taken to a table and given our menus.

The menus were rather large and the choices were overwhelming! What did I want to get? I not only could not decide, I was also distracted by spending time looking around at the different pictures on the walls of famous celebrities who also had visited and enjoyed ice cream at Boukairs over decades.

The waitress came over to take our order. I was undecided and still overwhelmed with the choices. Quickly, I noticed a photo on the menu of a banana split and I pointed to it and said "I'll have that". It took a little while to get our order, not that we minded as there was a lot to look at and talk about. The waitress finally brought our orders. When she put my banana split on the table, we all gasped! It was the biggest banana split I had ever seen! It was enough for 10 people, let alone just for me. Apparently, I had mistakenly ordered a banana split that was to be shared in a group! I could not send it back! I asked my friends (who ordered normal size ice cream treats) to help me eat it. No way were they going to be able to do that as even their individual portions were significant in size! I felt people were looking at me to see if I could eat all of that ice cream. I couldn't believe that I had not noticed that the menu had a section listing larger servings for people to share! I never even looked at the price either! My girlfriends were shocked and hysterical! When they brought the massive treat to the table, I think my eyes almost popped out of their sockets. Needless to say, I put a "dent" in it, albeit a small one (hardly noticeable). It was warm weather, so melting was an issue to try to get the leftovers home. Therefore I spent an inordinate amount of money for a banana split that I'd never be able to finish even if I lived to be 100! As you can well imagine, I never lived that one down for many, many years!

Andrea Ranta