Famous Nathan by Mr. Lloyd Handwerker Page B

over them. Proper concrete flooring remained years in the future.
    The foot traffic along Coney Island’s main stem was certainly there. Summer visitors flocked to the amusements, vaudeville houses, and bathhouses along Surf and the Bowery. Feltman’s, three blocks to the east of Nathan’s new store, hosted over two million customers that year.
    But something didn’t add up. Nathan and Sam took in a grand total of sixty dollars on their first weekend, Saturday through Sunday. It wasn’t enough to keep the place afloat. The competition was fierce. Nathan could look over to the nearby intersection of Surf and Stillwell and count four restaurants, one on each corner, including an outlet of the popular Nedick’s chain. It specialized in frankfurters, which sold for ten cents and came on a toasted bun.
    â€œSam, let’s make them a nickel,” Nathan suggested, referring to the store’s own dime frankfurters. He had years of experience at Manhattan luncheonettes, moving five-cent dogs in the hundreds per day. Why not at Coney?
    â€œNathan, I’m afraid,” Sam responded. “They’re going to put us out of business. You’ll be the only one selling them for a nickel.”
    Nathan silently cursed. He sensed his partner was getting cold feet all around.
    â€œMy fiancée gave me an argument,” Sam said. “She asked me, ‘Why did you get a place?’”
    â€œWell, what do you want to do?” Nathan asked.
    â€œPay me off.”
    Nathan didn’t have to think too long. “Okay, I’ll pay you off, $150. Good enough?”
    Sam agreed. “But you have to bring the money. You got to bring on Thursday the money.”
    Nathan had exhausted his savings on his half of the lease and purchasing equipment and inventory. How was he going to come up with $150 in four days? He reached out for a loan to his boss as Max’s Busy Bee, who had just opened up another restaurant at 97 Spring, a cafeteria-style eatery next door to the luncheonette. The loan was late in coming.
    â€œSo, Thursday, no money,” Nathan recalled. “Friday, no money. Saturday, still.” He was in danger of losing his investment in the little Surf Avenue storefront.
    Sam came to him that weekend. “You didn’t keep your word.” But the next day, the loan came through, and the buyout was settled. Nathan no longer had a partner. He was the sole leaseholder of a thin slice of Coney Island commercial real estate, a store that so far had failed to pay for itself.
    Seventy percent of new start-up restaurants fail, a ratio that has held constant over the years. Nathan was desperate to succeed. “When I came to this country, I had nothing,” he said, looking back at this period. “I knew that if I didn’t really work hard and do something, I couldn’t survive.”
    His first idea was to expand his product line. He knew of a store on Broome Street in Manhattan, a block south of the Busy Bee, that sold malteds, candy, and cigarettes. The place had a machine for sale, used and cheap, a mixer for making malted milkshakes. He bought the rig and then went farther downtown to Delancey Street, where he knew of a firm called I. Lefkowitz & Son, a syrup manufacturer.
    Nathan had in mind to create the finest malted in New York. He purchased a half gallon of chocolate syrup and a half gallon of vanilla, the latter to “open up the flavor of the malted.” Enlisting his older brother Joseph, he lugged the machine and the stock of ingredients out to Brooklyn and the little cubbyhole store on Surf Avenue.
    â€œThree cents for a malted, five cents for a malted with ice cream, six cents for a little ice before the machine mixes it up. I had the best malted to buy.”
    He wasn’t finished. In Coney, he bought another “little machine,” one that would grind a whole pineapple to make juice. “Two cents for a pineapple juice. Fresh made,