Mawby's

 

If you are from Cleveland's "Heights", and are of a certain age, you remember Mawby's, a small chain of burger places.  The picture above is the one at Cedar Center, a shopping center that lined both sides Cedar Road just west of Warrensville-Center Road.

Mawby's also had a Van Aken Center location in Shaker, but for the life of me, I cannot remember it.  Or maybe it closed before my mind could hold memories, or it could have closed even before I was me.  There was another at Cedar-Lee.  There may have been others, but they were all gone by the time I was twelve.

But, whatever the location, they made the best burgers in the world.  And the coffee, my mother claimed, would grow hair on your chest.

Mawby's is no longer, and that's a shame.  

They weren't fancy, in fact, they were downright spartan.  The restaurants didn't serve booze (that would have made them "a joint"), and they had no booths or tables. What they had were the longest counters in the Western Reserve with round stools bolted to the floor. The undersides of these counters were caked with years and years worth of chewing gum stuck under the counter by generations of patrons.  

At night, from the outside, the locations looked a lot like Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

They may have had other things to eat, but people went for the burgers, the french fries.  I seem to recall onion rings, as well.  Other people remember their "Indian Pudding" which sounds good (cornmeal, butter, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, a pinch of salt, and cinnamon, which is first heated to incorporate the ingredients, and then baked) that I may need to make a batch this winter. 

At Cedar-Lee, and at Cedar Center, the burgers were cooked on flat-topped carbon steel grilles, by cooks who mostly kept their backs to you.  These were not men in white jackets, but men in pants and white tee shirts, a paper hat on their heads, and long-apron tied in the back. Orders were taken by a counterwoman who would say "Tell me what you'll have." 

And if you tried to pull a dine and dash, those same cooks would tear out of there and catch up with you and shake the money out of you. Those were great days. 

My mother, who worked very hard at keeping her figure slim, would crave a Mawby's once in a great while, with grilled onions that were out of this world. I can still see the grease that would drip from those burgers, but that was what made them so good.  But the onions, my gawd those onions, they were pure heaven. 

Eventually, the clientele that made Mawby's famous died off or moved on, if not in location, then with their palettes.  Cedar-Lee went through a difficult 1970s, and then into a decline, which happily is behind it.* While Cedar Center made it to the 1980s, after that it went into decline.  The last Mawby's closed about the time the "Saucy Crepe" opened at Van Aken, and Heck's became popular in Ohio City.  Another place, Our Gang, opened in Beachwood, under the huge water tower, but it wasn't the same. Heck's is still around, but the crepe phase faded out, and Our Gang closed, and "Yours Truly"**, a smallish chain, took their place.  

Still, they ain't Mawby's.  

I doubt anyone ever will. But I can hope. 

*When they reopen Chin's Pagoda, then it will be really back. 

**Cookie has a personal aversion to Yours Truly.  The food is fine, and the restaurants a clean and well-run. But I always found the name to be somewhat forced, and frankly, it leaves you hanging because someone's name should follow it. But the biggest strike was that it was a favorite of Shark, my Step Monster, who would gush "I just love Yours Truly because that's the way I feel about my husband."  Never my father, but he was her husband and she wanted every fucking person to know it.  Still, should you get the chance, try it. It has its fans. My "meh" is about Shark, not the place itself.