A Boyhood at Red's: Growing Up in My Dad's Neighborhood Bar

By: Tom Romano

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Synopsis: In the small town of Malvern, Ohio, from 1940 until the mid-1960s, Red’s Nite Club and Bowling Alleys was a gathering place for the working class. Cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air, along with the scents of hamburgers sizzling on the grill, hot dogs slathered with mustard, and Mae’s famous Coney Island sauce. In this memoir of growing up in the apartment above his dad’s “beerjoint” (or neighborhood bar, as his mom called it), Tom Romano brings to life not only the customers who came to Red’s—from the giant wrestler Max Palmer to the dignified, cigar-smoking Mr. Facchini—but also his parents: Red, an Italian immigrant and savvy, disciplined businessman, and Mae, a woman of humor, grit, and resilience. Memories of two robberies, the crowded bar the night Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston, working as a “pin boy” in the bowling alleys, and sneaking into the Sky Way drive-in are set against the backdrop of a family with its own complicated history. Some pieces come to light only years later, threatening to topple the myth of Tom’s past. By turns humorous and heartbreaking, poignant and grim, A Boyhood at Red’s is ultimately a story of appreciation, loss, love, and acceptance.

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