Staten Island Restaurant Tour, Part XIV: Colonnade Diner (Jefferson Avenue)

Hunter-gatherers at Midland Beach.

Next stop on this comfort-food tour of New York’s Forgotten Borough is a neighborhood that has a station on the Staten Island Railway but is somehow bereft of a name. The Jefferson Avenue stop falls between just-visited Grant City to the south and about-to-be-visited Dongan Hills to the north. Most SIR stations correspond to neighborhood names but Jefferson Avenue is just a street. One, however, that terminates near a paradisical beach. One that still had a bit of snow on it, a week after Valentine’s Day.

My fingers fairly froze!

While lacking a traditionally designated neighborhood name, the area around the Jefferson Avenue rail station does have New Creek, a kinky little stream that starts as a fork-shaped thing in Last Chance Pond Park and meanders toward the east, perhaps hoping to join Lower Bay and the great Atlantic. However, it hopes in vain. Cruel fate has divided it and driven part of it north toward Ocean Breeze Park — and another part right back the way it came! A study in futility.

Let us bow our heads.

My destination today was the Colonnade Diner, a two-story structure with an eatery up top and a parking garage beneath. No need to worry about parking if you drive here. When I first visited, the day was cloudy and grey and this guy was hard at work repairing the steps leading to the upper level’s outdoor dining area. He was gracious enough to let me shoot a picture of him.

And even turned around to pose. What a gent!

My meal that day was a turkey dinner with all the fixings and a free glass of wine! It started with the salad, loaded with good dark green romaine…

Including a decent bread basket with egg-sesame rolls.

…and continued with turk, gravy, mashed, broc, and cran. This was a selection from the Colonnade’s 48th Anniversary Menu.

I would return to partake of the regular menu.

Tout ensemble on the plate.

It wasn’t there long.

Though I left with a full tum, I really wanted to return to get better views of the New Creek. On my first visit it looked like this.

Not inspiring.

When I returned, it was more like this. Which obviously lifted the spirits more.

That’s more like it.

I had planned to walk along Slater Blvd., which would have taken me directly to the beach nearby the creek, but one of two gravel paths on either side of the creek took me closer to the little waterway, as my shoes scrunched in the gravel.

Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch.

It was a beautiful and peaceful walk. I wondered if this were some kind of lock or flood break to protect the many newly constructed homes on this low-lying island.

You can’t really see the seagull on the center post.

Recently erected area housing tends to be variations on a theme. This was one of three themes I found. Note the differences in exterior detailing. Did the developer unilaterally decide on the decorative cladding or let the home buyers choose from a menu? Regardless, the effect was pleasing.

I had one of my “I could live here” moments, though I’m more of an apartment guy.

I can never resist a good pattern shot.

New Creek.

Gentlemen at leisure in Ocean Breeze Park, as I neared Midland Beach. That’s the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in the background. Constructed in 1959 by the infamous city wrecker Robert Moses, it is named for Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to reach New York Harbor and my beloved Hudson River.

Ocean Breeze Park.

Poor little New Creek didn’t make it here. But I did, and oh, the ocean view! I couldn’t resist a panorama shot.

Lower Bay, leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

Surf and turf.

Making me think of lunch.

There were rich assortments of driftwood, stones — I think the folks in the top photo were gathering some, or maybe beach glass — and razorclam shells.

Not all of that pictured here, because it’s time to eat.

Wending my way back up Jefferson Avenue, the Colonnade was looking spiffier than on my last visit.

Against a blue sky.

American flags were flapping in the wind. The Greek American owners, the Platis family, are clearly patriots. I felt right at home.

A place to munch and be proud.

And though my friend on the steps was gone, his handiwork lingered on.

Still couldn’t climb the steps to the upper level, though.

The upper level wasn’t open, but when I saw an open door, I couldn’t resist a peek.

Open sesame.

Perhaps they save it for catered events.

The pano mode got its indoor workout.

I was happy to eat down below. Plenty of neon and shiny stuff. When it opened in 1975, the Colonnade was known as The Disco Diner because folks clubbing on Hylan Blvd. would come in for late-night eats.

View from the front entrance, by the cashier.

Here’s the view from my table, looking through several glass dividers, which picked up reflections in a lysergic manner. The things I have overheard in this place! You’d go just for the conversation. While I was eating, a waiter engaged the old gentleman at right: “How did your surgery go? Was it successful?” The elder replied, “I died.”

Still with us.

I can’t imagine what a riot of repartee you’d hear when this place is busy. As I ate my chicken souvlaki platter — with thin-sliced chicken breast that folded nicely into the pita slices with feta and tomato accompaniment and a surprisingly sweet tzatziki yogurt sauce — I remembered the conversation I heard on my first visit as I ate the turkey dinner from the 48th Anniversary Menu.

Recalling the first meal during the second one.

Some dude who looked like a retired rock & roll roadie caught my ear with: “I always go for the throat, the eyes.” I was riveted. He had long straggly grey hair, a stache, and was dressed in a red T. I wondered if he were retired NYPD, since a lot of cops live in Staten Island. “Car pulled up. Two cops got out.” Nope, he was retired from something else. I thought of him again back at the ferry terminal, where the authorities and their dogs were keeping order.

Men and K9s on the job.

Self-portrait of aspiring food and travel blogger with the Freedom Tower as night creeps in.

Me and my Samsung A14.

And here’s a dirty-window shot of the great lady, Liberty, always on guard. The K9s and coppers and even the criminals must rest sometime. But she is always on her feet.

And watching over us.

I hope she’s still there when I venture out to a German restaurant in Dongan Hills. She has become a fixed point in my sometimes troubled but often joyful retirement life. My cares followed me onto the beach today but the sun and surf chased them away.

Previously on the Staten Island Restaurant Tour:

Part I: Angelina’s (Tottenville)

Part II: Fina’s Farmhouse (Arthur Kill)

Part III: Laila (Richmond Valley)

Part IV: Il Forno (Pleasant Plains)

Part V: Breaking Bread (Prince’s Bay)

Part VI: Woodrow Diner (Huguenot)

Part VII: Il Sogno (Annadale)

Part VIII: Riva (Eltingville)

Part IX: Marina Cafe (Great Kills)

Part X: Do Eat (Bay Terrace)

Part XI: Canlon’s (Oakwood Heights)

Part XII: Prince Tea House (New Dorp)

Part XIII: Inca’s Peruvian Grille (Grant City)

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