Lorenzo’s Restaurant: A Sandy Hook Tradition For 80 Years

By Nancy K. Crevier

In 1926, Main Street in Newtown was a dirt and gravel road, the center of Botsford was the railroad depot, St John’s Church was still made of wood, and the spire of a neo-Gothic style St Rose towered above the tree tops on Church Hill Road. The ground had not yet been broken for Edmond Town Hall, and tea houses and inns peppered the lanes, catering to tourists from the cities of Connecticut and New York. Cottages were just beginning to swell the summer community in the Riverside district of Sandy Hook, and Lake Zoar was in its infancy, as was a tiny, roadside refreshment stand named Lorenzo’s.

Located at the corner of Riverside Road and Center Street in Sandy Hook, Lorenzo’s has been a community icon for 80 years. Founded by Louis Lorenzo, in Italian immigrant, Lorenzo’s was just a little seasonal storefront selling mostly candy, hot dogs, and soda when it opened in 1926, according to Paul McCollum, owner since 1968 and the son-in-law of Louis Lorenzo, and Mr McCollum’s daughter, Laurie McCollum, who is now the general manager of Lorenzo’s. Even before her father purchased Lorenzo’s from his father-in-law, Ms McCollum remembers helping her grandfather around the restaurant and traveling with him to Bridgeport for supplies.

For four generations, the family has served the community, catering first to summer residents camped along the then-new Lake Zoar, and later reaching a much broader audience after Louis Lorenzo expanded the building in the 1930s to its present capacity of nearly 60 diners.

“People come from all over the area,” said Ms McCollum. “People even come back when they are visiting after they have moved away.” They arrive at the restaurant nestled into a wooded lot in the quiet, residential area by car for the most part, but families that have been patronizing Lorenzo’s for two or three generations know that they can dock their boats at the public access at the end of Riverside Road, just a couple of hundred yards away. In the summer, many boaters prefer to arrive at the restaurant via the water, Ms McCollum said, just like so many summer residents did 80 years ago.

Mr McCollum estimates that nearly 90 percent of Lorenzo’s customers are repeat, local customers, what he said is an amazing percentage in the restaurant business. They come, he said, for what he believes has been the recipe for 80 years of success in a difficult business: “Good food and good prices.”

The Zeifmans of Sandy Hook have been patrons of Lorenzo’s for nearly 25 years. Jerry Zeifman was introduced to the establishment by the woman who would become his wife, but said that she had been a fan of Lorenzo’s for many years before his courting days. An octogenarian, writer, and former Chief Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., Mr Zeifman said, “In my long years I’ve traveled around the whole world and eaten at a wide variety of restaurants in Paris, London, Tokyo, and who knows where else. My favorite restaurant of all time is Lorenzo’s. Isolated from my former life and insulated in the middle-class suburb, I find Lorenzo’s and its ambience as an excellent oasis from suburban parochialism.”

Alan Smith calls Lorenzo’s his “neighborhood bar and eatery,” and would agree with Mr Zeifman as to the quality of the food served there. “No matter what you order, it’s good. I’ve never had a bad meal there,” he said. And Mr Smith has had a lot of meals at Lorenzo’s. He has been a customer since 1969, sometimes dining there five nights a week. “It a good atmosphere,” Mr Smith said. “It’s a good, old-fashioned family restaurant.” The royal treatment customers receive are key to the restaurant’s longtime success, said Mr Smith. “People keep coming back to Lorenzo’s because it’s like going to a friend’s house and being treated like a king while you’re there.”

Just as Lorenzo’s has been a family business for four generations, the restaurant has been a  gathering spot for four generations of summer resident R.C. Howie’s family. “The [McCollum and Howie] families have really paralleled one another over the years,” said Mr Howie, who has summered in Sandy Hook all of his life. “My grandfather brought the family to Lake Zoar in 1938 and bought a cottage here after the war. He knew Louis Lorenzo, my mother was just a little older than Sallie, his daughter; we all sort of grew up together.” The restaurant’s location near the lake and the good food are the combination that has kept the Howie family coming back for seven decades, he said. “On vacation, we knew that ‘Mama doesn’t want to cook.’ So we eat out. We go back to the days when the choice was pizza or spaghetti. Now I go over there to Lorenzo’s and it’s good company,” said Mr Howie.

Consistency is another secret to the restaurant’s success, said the McCollums. Regular customers know what to expect. “People have their favorite dishes,” Ms McCollum noted. “They see the new items on the menu, but don’t want to change their order.”

Even so, the menu at the eatery has gradually expanded over the years from the original lasagna and pizza offerings. When Mr McCollum took over following his father-in-law’s retirement, one of the things he added was a green salad. Customers come just for her father’s made-on-premises salad dressing that tops the salad, said Ms McCollum.

Treating Customers Well

Pizza and lasagna remain popular items on the menu, but nowadays, ten appetizers, numerous pasta dishes, eggplant, chicken, or veal Parmigiana, shrimp scampi, filet mignon, and several other offerings in addition to Mr McCollum’s homemade meatballs and peppers and homemade sausage attract a steady and loyal clientele. Despite the fact that they do not advertise, word of mouth and family traditions of coming to Lorenzo’s keeps the restaurant full every Wednesday to Sunday night that it is open, February to December.

“We treat our customers well,” Ms McCollum said. “It’s a family place and we appreciate our customers.” It is an attitude that carries over from the days Lorenzo’s was owned by her grandfather. “Louis was very people-oriented,” Mr McCollum said. “He was very generous to people, especially during the war times.”

What is different from the days when Louis Lorenzo operated the restaurant, said Mr McCollum, is the customer’s attitude toward drinking. While Lorenzo’s does sport a small bar area, part of which is the original Lorenzo’s food stand, customers are much more conscientious about any drinking that they do. There is a great respect for the no drinking and driving laws, he observed, compared to the early years of business. “One of the things Louis and I disagreed on,” he laughed, “was the need for bar stools. When Louis had the place, he did not have barstools at the bar in order to keep people from hanging around the bar too long. Now, though, I don’t really have to worry about people hanging around at the bar and drinking too much. That rarely happens.” The bar area has become just an extension of the dining room, said Ms McCollum. “Some people like to eat in the bar, others prefer the main dining area.”

Regular customers know that Lorenzo’s is not the place to go if they are in a rush. The small staff of six, including Ms McCollum, her daughter, Meriah Tani, and Mr McCollum, prepare and serve everything to order. Along with the salad dressing, meatballs, and sausage, all of the food is prepared on the premises, including the pizza dough for the more than 20 varieties of pizza offered, and the sauces. Mr McCollum does not use frozen or prepared items and whether the order is a $6 sandwich or a $20 steak, it is prepared with the same attention to detail.

“People know they are going to come here and wait and relax. We want them to enjoy the meal,” said Ms McCollum. New customers are forewarned of the leisurely dining, and for most, she said, it is a welcome respite from the rush of life.

The dining room itself welcomes a slower pace. Large, high-backed booths line the walls and the only lighting comes from a number of wall lamps that cast a cozy glow on the same unusual, checkerboard tabletops installed by Louis Lorenzo 75 years earlier.

“I tried using tablecloths for awhile,” recalled Mr McCollum, “but people kept saying, ‘Where are the wood tables? We want to see the tabletops.’”

Eighty years in business and an endless supply of memories passed along from generation to generation guide the McCollums as they carry on the Lorenzo’s tradition. What makes a difficult business easier though, they said, are their customers. “We have absolutely the best people who come in here,” Ms McCollum declared.

For Paul McCollum, there is another aspect to running Lorenzo’s that he appreciates. “It’s nice to have family working with you. It makes a closeness.”

Lorenzo’s is open Wednesday through Saturday from 5 pm to 10:30 pm and from 5 pm to 9 pm on Sunday. It is closed Monday and Tuesday and for the month of January. For takeout service or to order ahead, call 426-3485.