Heir to a Coney Island legacy

Hank Barlas was having a customary morning cup of coffee on a recent Monday. He put on his glasses and flipped open a cell phone. It was a text message from his son, Pete.

“I have a lot of trouble with (text messages). My problem is I can’t read the damn things,” Hank says. He and his son talk on the phone often, but Pete said texts are faster sometimes.

“He likes the novelty of them,” Pete says the next day, “but he won’t admit to it.”

On Wednesday, Hank and Pete spoke in person and drank coffee at Coney Island Grill, a hot dog joint the Barlas family opened in 1926. The grill has undergone minimal alterations since the 1950s. The menu does not include combo meals or low-carb substitutions, but customers keep going back.

Over the decades, the employees have earned a reputation. If the staffers don’t insult you, one patron said on a recent Saturday, they are not your friends.

The father was clean-shaven with gray hair. The son’s ears were pierced, and he had 5-o’clock shadow. The father wore black pants and a short-sleeve white shirt. Pens showed from his left chest pocket. He wore red suspenders on his chest and “America’s Favorite Comfort Shoes” on his feet. The son wore a black polo shirt, blue jeans and New Balance running shoes.

Hank has worked at the grill since the 1970s and knows Pete has to take over soon. The father is 72 years old and enjoys old-fashioned hot dogs. His 45-year-old son is a vegetarian.

Both men were uneasy. Hank thinks Pete will deviate too much from the tradition at Coney Island. And Pete is hesitant, as his father was years before. Hank worked a different job every year trying to avoid working with his father. Pete has followed his father’s footsteps. After graduating with a degree in fine art photography, he worked as a radio announcer. Then he pursued a career in retail.

And now, it might not be long before Pete takes over the family business.

The people and the place

An old, weatherworn “Coney Island” sign hangs outside the restaurant. It has no flashing lights. It is red with white letters.

The inside of the restaurant is simple, too. Twenty-four pictures and signs hang from the tan walls, yet they look bare. There are seven booths and 20 stools, all covered with brown vinyl. Meat is stored in a General Electric refrigerator from the 1930s that looks like a cabinet.

There is no music. The three air-conditioner units in the windows roar constantly. The plates clack. The silverware pings. The customers chatter. This is the rhythm of the restaurant.

Coney Island cooks between 400 and 600 hot dogs a day, says Jerry Lovely, who has cooked there for 26 years.

The 6-inch hot dogs are cooked on an old grill, with heart-shaped knobs manufactured by Hart. The grill is cast iron, which retains more heat and is durable, Lovely says.

The hot dogs sizzle. After cooking, the hot dogs are put on bun and get one or two smears of mustard, then a big scoop of onions, followed by a hearty pour of chili. The hot dogs are served with coleslaw or Tom’s Original potato chips.

Paul Kavin, 58, has eaten there for 26 years and said he is still the new kid. “It’s one the few great places left around,” Kavin said.

Recently, Tracy Keim, a waitress, passed Kavin, who was sitting at the counter eating two hot dogs.

“I’m surprised they let you put that on there today,” Keim says about the ketchup on his hot dog.

“They have been charging me (a nickel) for this little squirt of ketchup for years,” Kavin says. “A penalty fee.”

“It ruins the recipe,” says Gail Kelley, another waitress. “There are no tomato products in a recipe. A good chili doesn’t need ketchup.”

The restaurant doesn’t make chili-cheese dogs and will never serve relish.

It‘s a decades-old philosophy.

History

Hank’s Greek-immigrant father, also named Pete, created those attitudes when he founded the iconic diner.

Before opening the grill, Pete moved to Boston and then to Virginia, where he worked in a grocery with his sister and brother-in-law. Later Pete opened a seafood and steak house in St. Petersburg.

Then he established Coney Island.

Pete liked to keep things simple. When the restaurant opened, chili dogs cost a nickel. Pete did not increase his prices until World War II. Pete was frugal with the decor, too.

But gradually, changes happened at the grill.

Music once filled Coney Island. Hank recalled the days tunes poured out of a jukebox during the 1950s. Local high school students came in and danced during lunch. The songs stopped after his father was told that he needed a license for people to dance. Hank said it cost more money than his father wanted to pay.

In the 1960s, the grill stopped serving whole meals and began to concentrate on hot dogs.

Also during the '60s, “we got sued in federal court (over desegregation),” Hank says. Still visible from the parking lot is a vestige from the Jim Crow era: the take-out window for black customers.

Hank was a teenager then and does not recall all of the details, but he knew the family was not aware of the lawsuit until it was printed in the newspaper.

“A photographer came to take pictures but had come back again later because the pictures didn’t fit his purpose,” Hank says. “There were some black kids sitting at the counter.”

When Pete passed in 1984, Hank and his brother George did not think they could run the business. The customers didn’t either. But the brothers made it work. Then, in 2005, George died.

Hank’s son, Pete, is the last Barlas man.

There was a bond among the Barlas men, the younger Pete said. Pete grew up next door to his grandfather and recalled watching “Bonanza” and “Gunsmoke” with him.

“He was a big part of my life,” Pete says.

The goal is to keep the grill in the family.

Recently, a nagging back injury has limited Hank’s presence at the grill. He arrives around 8 a.m. and begins kitchen prep work. He leaves shortly after the doors open at 10 a.m.

“I feel like I’m reaching a point where I can’t do this much longer,” Hank says. “Somebody got to step up.”

Changing the guard

Pete has contributed behind the scenes by doing bookkeeping and ordering since George died. But Hank wants his son to become more hands-on.

“He needs to get in here while I can still teach him,” Hank says.

Pete worked in the restaurant when he was young, but after graduating from the University of South Florida, he owned a record store for 12 years.

Now Pete lives in Tampa and goes into the restaurant several times a week. But he lacks vital skills — like making the chili.

“I’m avoiding it as long as I can,” Pete says.

Hank says he understands how his son feels. He also had much to learn when he started working at the grill.

“But he is more of a rebel than I was,” Hank says.

They sat in a booth across from each other. Pete says he is excited but has reservations about the future. When Pete worked at Coney Island, he was a dishwasher and even worked the front grill during the lunch rush.

“That takes a special talent,” Pete says.

“Yeah, but you have the personality for it,” Hank says. “You do well.”

You can see a young Hank in Pete; they have same nose and eyes.

But they’re different, too.

Pete says he wants to make changes. Start taking credit cards. Advertise. Customers ask for other changes every day: french fries, strawberry shakes, root beer, bottled water. Some of them ask for relish.

When they do, Gail Kelly, the waitress, refuses.

“We’ll never do that,” she says.

And even though Pete isn’t afraid of change, he has his limits.

For one thing, he’ll never sell relish.

“I don’t foresee any tofu wieners in there,” Pete says. “You don’t want to mess with a formula that has worked for 82 years. We don’t want my grandfather turning in his grave.”