”Īs soon as she moved to an apartment in the Bronx upstairs from Tony’s, she took over the lunch counter and her food was drawing long lines, this time in the States. “The oven would go out suddenly, and I’d have to finish work using a wood pallet. “ we’d bring a gas tank to have it filled up and later realize they didn’t give us the amount we paid for,” she says. She had an award-winning pastry shop in Santo Domingo, but she found operating a business frustrating. Romero moved from Santo Domingo to the Bronx 16 years ago, when she was 47. People live in these buildings for 30 years and don’t know their neighbors or even say hello to them in the hallway.” “In the Dominican Republic, you don’t need a place like this, people interact outside,” she says, “Life is different here. For neighborhood residents, it is a communal living room. The convivial atmosphere keeps them lingering well after lunch. The billiard room at Tony’s Billiard Cafe.Īll day people trot down the basement stairs into the tiny space, for Romero’s food. She smiled, walked back to the kitchen, and assuredly spooned stewed meat and beans into containers. You can count on it.” Anita overheard him. He moved to New Jersey years ago, but he still makes a long trip once a week, because, as he says, ”Anita’s sazon is always the same. A bundled-up man hustled down the entryway stairs for his takeout order. People who eat here once become customers for life. Fried pork belly chunks taste great over white rice soaked in red bean liquor. Her stewed beef, goat, and chicken are tender and aromatic, bathed in tangy sofrito. The food is delicious at Tony’s (the name has stuck despite the fact that Romero and customers don’t know who Tony was. At separate high-top tables along the walls, two men sat quietly, enjoying the main attraction, chef Anita Belen Romero’s daily specials. A small child ran between the three bar-sized pool tables to the TV in the back to watch cartoons in Spanish. "When she was seven, I used to play her for a cup of soda,” said customer Tony Ciccotto.On a cold Saturday afternoon at Tony’s Billiard Cafe in the Bronx, a family of three sat at the black granite lunch counter drinking multicolored Country Club sodas. Longtime customers remember watching the rise of a young Balukas. Over the years, the pool hall, which has never sold alcohol, expanded to include ping pong and an arcade. "These types of rooms, which are rather large in New York City, are difficult because they take up so much space and it's hard for people to pay rent and taxes,” said Jean’s brother Paul Balukas. Balukas quit playing professionally in 1988 and is preparing to retire the business by selling the building and the pool tables.īalukas is only 60, but Billiards Hall of Fame has been behind the 8 ball. There's a lot of people who play this game,” she said.īut for the first time since it opened in 1964, there will be no more billiards at the 48-table pool hall. "I was on a show called ‘Superstars’ and I got to meet Martina Navratilova, Jack Nicklaus, Joe DiMaggio, Susan Sarandon. Her family quickly changed the name of Ovington Billiards to Hall of Fame Billiards to reflect her new honor. In 1985, when she was only 26, she was inducted into the Billiards Hall of Fame.
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