In the Corner
While most baby boomers associate the name “Corner Restaurant” with the place Stephen Friedman opened in 1980, that location at Westport Road and Broadway has had the name before. In the years after World War II, it was a soda fountain and snack shop called The Corner Grill, run by the Meltis family. The place continued as a lunch spot (The Tempter Sandwich Shop was one of its 1960s incarnations) until the 1970s, when it was reborn as The Golden Temple Conscious Cookery, one of the city’s first vegetarian restaurants. When that place lost consciousness, the memory of the Corner Grill returned to spawn a dynasty.
For all its urban grittiness, the original The Corner Restaurant (see review) at least has character. The same can’t be said for its six-month-old sister, The Corner Restaurant South (9916 Holmes), located in the space once occupied by the old Sherlock’s Steakhouse. Also unlike its Westport counterpart, this Corner Restaurant actually proffers cocktails in addition to wine and beer and serves “homestyle dinners” until 9 p.m. six nights a week. (The restaurant closes at 3 p.m. on Sundays.) Those meals are traditional diner fare: chicken-fried steak, chopped-beef steak, deep-fried shrimp and fried chicken tenders. None of the dinners costs more than $9.
The breakfast menu isn’t nearly as elaborate as the original Corner’s, reducing five pancake options to one (although the new Corner offers two kinds of waffles, while the old place serves none). Lunch offerings are pretty much the same on both menus.
Servers at the new Corner, however, couldn’t be more friendly or accommodating. On a recent afternoon, one of the gals talked me out of ordering something deep-fried by hauling the cook out of the kitchen. He confessed he hadn’t changed the oil in the fryer and that it tasted “kind of old.” So I took his suggestion and ordered the gyro special, which wasn’t too bad — even if the grilled meat was smothered in sour cream rather than the traditional yogurt-and-dill tsatsiki sauce. My friend Pam sampled a concoction of angel-hair pasta, sautéed vegetables and a surprisingly luscious tomato cream sauce. Who would have thunk it?
The waitress told me that this new suburban Corner attracts an older clientele — culled mostly from the surrounding neighborhood — than the trendier Westport version. But during that particular lunch hour, the oversized dining room was occupied primarily by bearded construction workers knocking down hamburgers or bowls of broccoli-cheese soup.
Still, the new Corner is devoid of personality. It looks like a banquet hall in a hick-town’s motor inn.
For truly excellent homestyle meals, there’s the Corner Café at 4541 Northwest Gateway in Riverside, Missouri. (It’s not connected with the other Corner Restaurants.) The place serves heart-stopping cinnamon rolls and crunchy fried chicken every day but Wednesday.
