Smoke Eater

What’s more deadly, cigarette smoking or obesity?

I pondered this while I was buttering a warm roll (with real butter, mind you, not margarine) and looking around the tidy dining room at Harold’s Restaurant & Lounge (4071 N.E. Prather Road).

Driving north of the river to Harold’s, I hadn’t thought much about the impending controversy sparked by City Councilman Chuck Eddy‘s efforts to outlaw smoking in bars, restaurants, casinos and such. My mind was focused on prime rib. Since the 12-ounce prime rib at J. Alexander’s (see review, page 39) costs $20.95 and includes potatoes, a salad and croissant, I wanted to see if Harold’s — which is legendary for its low prices — could beat the deal. But the 12-ounce prime rib at Harold’s wasn’t much cheaper. It goes for $19.25 (including salad or soup and rolls, potato or quiche, and vegetable). I was ready to order it until our waitress, Gail, announced that night’s T-bone special. “But remember,” she cautioned, “our T-bones are very thin.”

Ah, yes! I suddenly recalled that the prime rib at Harold’s isn’t on the hefty side, either. So I opted for the $7.25 dinner special: a cup of vegetable-beef soup, crunchy chicken-fried steak smothered in cream gravy, and real mashed potatoes. Delicious but probably as tough on my arteries as smoking a couple of Marlboro Reds.

Diners can have it both ways at Harold’s, because it’s a smoker’s paradise. The hostess at the front door doesn’t ask patrons whether they’d like a nonsmoking table, because very few people who come in to the 43-year-old restaurant want one. And why should they? There are only two, and they happen to be the two worst tables in the place. All of the others are conveniently outfitted with large, amber ashtrays big enough to fill with a couple packs of snubbed-out butts. Oh, there is a 1980s-vintage “smoke eater” perched on a tiny shelf mounted up near the ceiling, in the center of the dining room, but owner Janice Ash (yes, that’s her real name) told me she doesn’t even plug it in anymore.

What will happen, I asked Gail, if Eddy’s proposal passes? Won’t it severely hurt business at Harold’s?

“Absolutely!” Gail said. She said she hadn’t been aware of the possible tobacco ban until I mentioned it. But the more she thought about it, the more she fumed. “I’ll stop going to bars if I can’t smoke!” she said.

I wish I felt the same way about … bakeries.