Cairo's

I posted this in a Long Island topic, but it seems like it's so far down that no one will ever see it. So: Anyone remember a restaurant in one of the Five Towns, probably Lawrence or Inwood, called Cairo's? In my memory it was the perfect Italian steakhouse: we used to stop there on Sunday evenings on the way back from Atlantic Beach. Huge martinis, great steaks, zuppa di pesce, lobsters. Everyone tanned, rowdy, mostly Italian and Jewish clientele, no one seemed to ever stop talking or drinking or eating. It's become a Nirvana in my mind, thirty-odd years later.

I'd love to get someone else's impressions and recollections.

Sure.  I grew up in the neighborhood and went to Cairo's for both the food and the fact that they served us beer when we were several years underage.

The owner was Teddy Cairo and his lame brother Chick who had an artificial leg was a more or less Maitre d'.  Mario was the chef.  The scungilli with peppery red sauce and the "Chicken Vesuvius" cooked in white wine with mushrooms were fabulous as were many other dishes.

It was tucked into an obscure corner of the Italian section of Inwood that we all learned how to find early in our high school days.   Many of us worked as locker and cabana boys in Atlantic Beach in the summer and steered many city folks there for dinner when asked "What's a good place to eat around here?"  This led to a slogan on the front of the menu that read:  "Location out of the way.  Food out of this world."

A frequent source of impromptu entertainment was when a local boy, Donnie Cooper, would show up.  Donnie and Teddie, who hated each other for unknown reasons,

Scallion1


I posted this in a Long Island topic, but it seems like it's so far down that no one will ever see it. So: Anyone remember a restaurant in one of the Five Towns, probably Lawrence or Inwood, called Cairo's? In my memory it was the perfect Italian steakhouse: we used to stop there on Sunday evenings on the way back from Atlantic Beach. Huge martinis, great steaks, zuppa di pesce, lobsters. Everyone tanned, rowdy, mostly Italian and Jewish clientele, no one seemed to ever stop talking or drinking or eating. It's become a Nirvana in my mind, thirty-odd years later.

I'd love to get someone else's impressions and recollections.

would start verbally sparring which soon led to a fistfight broken up by Chick.