THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503170055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 185 lines
DEAN MARTIN is on the jukebox, as he often is at Mama's Italian Kitchen. Shawn Doolittle and his buddies from the Navy Band are slouched at one of Mama's tables, as they often are at lunchtime.
Patrizia Whittaker, the owner's daughter, stops to chat. ``Do you know what it is,'' Shawn asks her over Martin's crooning, ``when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie?''
Patrizia smirks and says, ``You tryin' to get romantic with me?''
Shawn leans forward. ``That there,'' he says earnestly, his New York accent thick, ``that's amore.''
Patrizia laughs, shakes her head, begins to bus their table. The Navy Band is a frequent sight in this venerable Ocean View restaurant. Some members eat there four, even five days a week.
Half the Navy seems to be a regular, in fact. Khaki-clad men and women are scattered among vinyl booths and four-tops, grazing on generous portions of cheese-capped pasta. A wall above the cash register displays a framed photo of Navy helicopters, signed by their crews. A plaque from aviators thanks the restaurant for its support and good food.
Patrizia explains to the trio that they might not be visiting Mama's - or at least this Mama's - for long. That the city, without talking to anyone at Mama's, has unveiled a consultant's vision for the Norfolk bayfront that calls for building a park along the Ocean View beach.
That this would mean bulldozing the row of stores and restaurants that Mama's has occupied since 1950, along with such other neighborhood landmarks as Greenie's and the Thirsty Camel.
Her customers look stricken. ``If they take this place away, where are we gonna go to eat Italian food?'' asks Shawn, a drummer. ``I'm from New York, so I know: This is the best Italian food in Virginia.''
``And I'm from New Jersey, so I know,'' agrees Erik DeSantis, who plays the trumpet.
``I'm from California, so I don't know,'' pianist Own Willingham says. ``But it's good.''
``What am I gonna do?'' Shawn says. ``Where am I gonna go?''
Out-of-town consultants weren't paying much mind to Ocean View when Giuseppina Loiercio - that's Mama - opened for business. Her restaurant was tucked into a narrow little building with its back to the beach. A bank stood on its east side.
A few doors to the west, Zachary ``Jack'' Matiatos already ran Greenie's, a restaurant at 198 W. Ocean View Ave. that specializes in home-style comfort food. When Matiatos bought the place in 1948, streetcars rattled past on their way down Willoughby Spit.
Business was good. One reason: The Nansemond Hotel, just west of Greenie's, supplied Mama and Jack with a steady stream of customers. Another, to the east of the bank, was the Ocean View Amusement Park. It drew hungry crowds.
``We had walk-in business,'' Jack says, leaning on a sparkly-speckled yellow countertop that runs the depth of Greenie's. The restaurant is empty, save for employees drinking coffee. ``Second to downtown, Ocean View was the busiest place.
``We had a lot of tourists who came every summer. We had a lot of little children, and they'd grow up and they'd come in here with their children. We had a lot of repeat business.''
The hotel burned. The amusement park shut down. Most of the businesses that once lined the far side of Ocean View Avenue, businesses that made a cozy business district of the avenue's intersection with First View Street, were torn down to make way for a shopping center.
The locals kept coming. Jack opened a bar, the Coach Lamp, next door to Greenie's and added a deck out back overlooking the Chesapeake. The bank moved, and Mama took over its building.
But these improvements did not alter the fact that the strip containing the restaurants was now an island, surrounded by some of the most valuable open land in the city. It was a cinch that sooner or later the property would be developed.
Ray Gindroz's master plan for the area recommends selling off Community Beach, a public swimming area farther east on the bayfront, for housing. He proposes devoting the waterfront to park and public beach from Ocean View Park to the Sarah Constant Shrine.
Gindroz, a Pittsburgh consultant who helped craft Norfolk's downtown master plan and several neighborhood projects, is in the business of making suggestions, not decisions. His plan is not a done deal. The city has not adopted it. Even if it does, it could take years to turn it into reality.
Still, Mama's and Greenie's stand smack in the middle of his proposed parkland. And given the way she learned of the plan - from reading the newspaper - Mama isn't taking much comfort in the proposal's embryonic status.
``A restaurant, it is here in Ocean View for 45 years, and somebody wants to come and take it away? That is not right,'' she says. ``If they want to do something in Ocean View, that's fine. But give people a chance.''
Around her are some of the quirky decorating touches that have helped make Mama's an Ocean View mainstay. A large plastic Dalmatian stands guard over the register from atop a wall. A bronze statue of a laughing, loinclothed boy dominates a nearby fountain, an urn tucked under one arm. From his hand dangles a bronze crab. The fountain is broken, its bottom dry, but customers continue to toss in coins.
``This is where I want to stay,'' she says. ``If they want to put the restaurant back on this side (of Ocean View Avenue), if they want to do it a different way, I don't care. I want the same location.''
Jack, who says he isn't familiar with the proposal's details - ``Nobody came to talk to me'' - isn't much bothered by the idea of selling his business. He wouldn't mind retiring. But he worries that talk of the plan will scare off any buyers other than the city - and if the plan takes years to unfold, he'll be stuck.
``If the city approaches me and they offer me a fair value, I agree with this 100 percent,'' he says. ``My wish is for whatever is going to be done, that it be done soon.''
A half-mile down the beach, frustration is traded at the Thirsty Camel. The landmark at 394 W. Ocean View Ave. also would be history if the plan is adopted: Gindroz has suggested redeveloping the land between Sarah Constant Shrine and Harrison's Fishing Pier, and that land includes the Camel.
``They're gonna do the same thing here they've done everywhere else,'' Steve Whitehurst is saying. ``They're gonna screw the little guy. There's enough places in Ocean View that need to be torn down that they don't need to be messing with this.''
Phil Courtney and Jeff Hudson, tattooed boulders sitting a couple stools away, nod bandana-wrapped heads. ``Places like this don't need to be torn down,'' says Phil, who's in town to build a tiger enclosure at the zoo. ``They need to go after the places that have the scum.''
Years ago, a list of such places might have included the Thirsty Camel, which suffered a somewhat soiled reputation. Today, it's a neighborhood pub populated by a loyal clientele in search of big, juicy burgers; good seafood; cold beer; and honest conversation. It borders on respectable.
``Turned this place around from just an old sailor beer joint to having food,'' says Steve Radogna, the Camel's owner, sitting at a table a few yards away. ``We've been here a long time. I could not believe they had the audacity to talk about something like this without contacting me.''
Like the folks down the street, Steve learned of the plan when he read about it in the paper. That didn't sit well. ``I'll tell you what's gonna happen,'' he says. ``I'm not going anywhere.''
Back down the bar, Steve Whitehurst is watching Phil order a tequila. ``I'm not a regular in here,'' Steve says over the jukebox, ``but I come in here a couple times a week, once in a while. It's a good place. You stay away for a year and come back, and you see the same faces.''
In fact, Phil and Jeff are among the few non-regulars here. Others at the bar, many adding to the cigarette smoke curling in the shafts of afternoon light streaming through the windows, know the owner and each other. Several have commented on how nice the newly refelted pool table looks.
In these regulars might lie some hope. The owners and patrons of these three businesses can argue, and offer ample evidence to show, that their eateries are intrinsic to Ocean View's identity.
People along the bayfront long have distinguished their neighborhood from the rest of Norfolk. The beach is part of the explanation; but as with any neighborhood, its hangouts set it apart, too. These places are serious hangouts.
Take them away and you gouge a piece out of the neighborhood's human face. Move them out of their funky, slightly battered homes into brand-new, sterile quarters and you commit an even greater sin.
The tequila appears before Phil. ``Look at that,'' Jeff says. ``It's completely clear!''
``Yeah, this is the good stuff,'' Phil growls. ``Tastes like lighter fluid, too, I guarantee.'' He picks up the shot glass. It looks like a thimble in his hand.
A guy with blow-dried hair down the bar offers insights about the Mexican liquor. ``I think the guava cactus is closely related to the mescal,'' he says.
Phil downs the shot. ``Most tequ-tequulas - most tequilas are too. . . '' He searches for the right word. ``They're too squeezy. They're too squeezy.''
Jeff shakes his head and says: ``He doesn't even know what the hell he's saying right now.
``They got places in Ocean View that when I was a little kid were there and that should have been torn down then. They're still standing.
``Jesus Christ, they tore down the amusement park,'' he mutters. ``Why they wanna go tearing down the Camel?'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Greenie's restaurant and the Coach Lamp may not survive the next few
years if city planners have their way.
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Patrons fill the Thirsty Camel, an Ocean View watering hole that has
been a fixture in the neighborhood for generations and has a loyal
clientele.
GARY C. KNAPP
[Color Photo]
Owen Willingham, center, and friends Steve Martins, left, and Greg
Wyble are frequent diners at Mama's Italian Kitchen.
GARY C. KNAPP
Mama's Italian Kitchen in Ocean View is a favorite hangout for
members of the Navy Band, as well as other Navy personnel.
by CNB