It was almost like old times.
The curving bar and the red-leather chairs and bench seat said "John's Flaming Hearth" as loudly as the familiar flame-topped logo on the door and menus.
Last Friday night was the first time since a badly bungled foray into the real estate business by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority forced the Niagara Falls landmark out of business, then landed the entire transaction in court, that a crowd gathered at John's Flaming Hearth.
Even if it was on the other side of Military Road from where one of the city's most famous restaurants welcomed familiar faces and first-time visitors for more than half a century.
The planned sale that forced the Flaming Hearth's closing has yet to go through. After requiring the removal of asbestos and other items from the building's interior as a pre-closing requirement, the NFTA swapped its obligation to Benderson Development in return for another Military Road property.
In late June, days before closing, Benderson officials pulled out of the deal, forcing the Flaming Hearth property into foreclosure.
This Hearth stands in the parking lot of the Fashion Outlets at Niagara Falls mall, occupying the former Red Lobster space and sharing a building with another Falls institution, Honey's Pizza.
The reborn eatery reopened on Dec. 5, a little more than nine months since the Prozeralik family closed down the original.
At the time, John Prozeralik wasn't sure what he was going to do without the place that served as the foundation for an empire that included, at various times, hotels, an airline and the national chain of roadside Stuckey's stores.
"I'm not sure if I'm going to do something," he said on that cold February night. "But if I do, I'm going to do it soon."
You can be sure of two things about John Prozeralik. He's a man of his word. And retirement wasn't a serious consideration, even without his brother Nick at his side, as he'd been since the original opened on Jan. 1, 1954.
Sure enough, he met up with Sung Soo Kim, who runs a company that brings thousands of tourists from Asia to Niagara Falls each year. All those people need a place to eat. Prozeralik needed people to feed. And so was born the new John's Flaming Hearth.
Prozeralik has long been a vocal advocate for bringing more chartered groups of tourists to Niagara Falls, so it's fitting that he's involved in melding that attempt with the regional institution that bears his name.
Besides the furnishings that made it down Military Road, chef Paul Bunce and other former Flaming Hearth employees rejoined the staff. Angelo Morreale, longtime proprietor of Old Angelo's in the Hotel Niagara, signed on as bar manager, adding to the place's local flavor.
There are some new flourishes, like a large, flat-screen television and a jukebox full of CDs, aimed at drawing a customer base beyond the core of regulars who frequented the original.
Niagara Falls Reporter Publisher Bruce Battaglia and I stopped in early Friday evening. We didn't have time for a leisurely steak dinner, so settled for a cheeseburger and crab cakes.
After dinner, I stopped by the kitchen to say hello. In a bustling room full of cooks and servers, Bunce said Prozeralik had stepped away for a moment, then pointed to a butcher's block covered with the Flaming Hearth's trademark steaks.
"John's been cutting steaks," Bunce said, smiling, when asked what the place's namesake was doing on his first Friday night back in business. "That's what he does."
The mess surrounding the sale of the first Flaming Hearth painfully demonstrates the lack of accountability for quasi-public agencies like the NFTA, the boards of which are generally larded up with patronage appointees whose main qualifications involving large checks to political candidates.
Not to pick on Henry Sloma -- vice chairman of the NFTA and one of the architects of the Flaming Hearth fiasco, chairman of the Niagara County Industrial Development Board and member of the hospital-closing commission picked by outgoing Gov. George Pataki -- or anything.
If published reports surrounding Eliot Spitzer's choice for one of his most important appointments are true, though, the days of government of the campaign donors, by the campaign donors and of the campaign donors might be coming to a merciful end.
Last week, Newsday reported that Spitzer intends to tap Patrick Foye, chairman of the United Way of Long Island, as chairman of the Empire State Development Corp. Foye is not affiliated with any political party and, while he has donated to Spitzer's campaign fund, he has done the same for Pataki and John Faso, Spitzer's quixotic opponent in September's Democratic Primary.
Contrast that with Pataki's ESDC chief, Charles Gargano, who just happened to be Pataki's chief fund-raiser. It might seem an incredible conflict for the same person who solicits big checks from donors to decide who gets immense government contracts, but that's New York for you.
State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver called Gargano "the most corrupt member of this administration" last month. To be fair, that assessment doesn't take into account Gargano's greatest accomplishment as chairman -- squiring Phyllis George to society galas.
Aside from cozying up to the former Miss America and "NFL Today" star, Gargano is best known in these parts for his supervision of USA Niagara, the ESDC subsidiary that has done so, so much for downtown Niagara Falls.
USA Niagara's lengthy list of achievements includes building a landlocked conference center with a severe parking deficiency for only $17 million, stringing out a local contractor for months after the Third Street renovations were complete and holding multiple press conferences and printing up glossy newsletters praising things that might happen someday. Oh, and squeezing money out of the nearly bankrupt city it was designed to help.
Under Gargano, the ESDC was also willfully neglectful when it came to developing Buffalo's inner harbor, first attempting to force-feed that city a bland marina and then dragging a revised plan out as long as possible.
Spitzer made reforming the ESDC a priority during his upstate campaign stops. If, as he said over and over and over and over through the summer and fall, everything really does change on the first day of his administration, that largely useless body is a good place to start.
And the happiest of 70th birthdays to our good friend Mary Christian.
A veteran employee of numerous Niagara Falls restaurants and taverns, most recently VFW Post 917 on Seneca Avenue, Mary celebrated becoming a septuagenarian last Friday at Marsil's, the Falls Street establishment owned by her son, Darryl, and daughter-in-law, Glenda.
Mary regularly works magic with chicken and potatoes for functions of all sizes, including several Niagara Falls Reporter-sponsored bashes. Due to some confusion in last week's ad for Marsil's -- and there's absolutely no need to point any fingers here -- she wound up cooking the food for her own birthday party.
Sorry about that, Mary.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 12 2006 |