When I was three years old, I remember laying on my couch in the living room hearing my parents have a conversation at the dinner table. A question popped out of the silence, out of the void:
"What if we opened a restaurant?"
The words, spoken by my dad, met silence from my mother, but inside I felt ecstatic. "Yes! Yes! A restaurant!!" I exclaimed as I jumped up from the couch. "Let's open a restaurant!!"
It was a crazy idea, but one that came from a man who not only is an amazing chef, but also whose main occupation is a financial advisor, so he's economically knowledgeable. Personally, the thought of us owning something like that seemed so fun. And thus, an idea became a plan.
We bought the property and built the restaurant from the ground up. I remember playing amongst the wooden framework while the construction workers sanded the walls opposite me. I remember going to the lighting store and picking out the fixtures and deciding on the color scheme: a bright, sunflower yellow with a trim of deep blue, which my mother picked out. I remember my aunt and uncle visiting from New York City to invest and help us build the business. My aunt, a graphic designer, carefully stenciled the letters and logo into the wall: DiMaggio's Cooperstown Hot Dog. Soon a dream went from a plan to reality, and in the spring of 2005, we opened our doors.
The original look.
A hot dog in the making.
Cooperstown is a tourist town centered around the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Dreams Park, where kids' baseball teams from all across the continent travel to compete for the crown. New teams come each week for 13 weeks in the summer. Other than that, Cooperstown is a sleepy, quiet town nestled amongst the hills of upstate New York, and not much else happens. Thus, we decided to stay open seasonally, which was fine for everyone.
My parents sent me to summer programs on certain days and friends' houses on others so I would be entertained and they wouldn't have to worry about watching me. But when I was at the restaurant, I would make friends with the other children there, quietly eat chicken nuggets, or watch movies on a portable DVD player, and take naps in the back. I loved the fact that we owned a restaurant that held our name.
The famous sign.
A baseball team comes to eat after a game at the Dreams Park.
When I was 11, my mom began to let me work there, just doing small tasks and jobs. It was around that time that she started to cut her time at DiMaggio's down and look for a job elsewhere. It was also about that time that we moved about half an hour away to be closer to my new school. Our lives were slowly but surely starting to shift away from the restaurant.
I worked as an employee at DiMaggio's full-time when I was 14 and 15, sometimes clocking upwards of 40 hours per week there. It was fine with me, I was saving my money up anyways. Besides, I got along with all of the employees and vice versa. But my parents no longer wanted to own DiMaggio's.
Me, age seven, drinking a milkshake before watching the weekly fireworks shoot off at the Dreams Park.
The view of the restaurant from inside the Dreams Park's gates.
In 2016, the restaurant sale was finalized; we no longer had any rights to the corporation. It was a heck of a ride, though. My entire childhood--or at least all of my summers--had been built around DiMaggio's. But my parents were moving onto different things, getting out of the restaurant business. My mom left to focus on her new job and my dad left to focus on his main occupation and also to pursue his hobbies and interests.
Now the restaurant is getting a completely new makeover and becoming a bar under the new owner. But I know what it used to be, no matter what it becomes. I know it was the place where I grew up, the place where many tears but also many laughs were shared. My first job. The resume builder. The place I grew my knowledge of business, food, social skills, work ethic, and so much more. Working in a family business was a blessing that I didn't realize until I was out on my own in new jobs in unfamiliar settings. And although I don't plan on ever owning a restaurant myself, I'm glad I had that experience to tell my kids and grandkids about. DiMaggio's will always be a part of me, no matter what happens.
