Green Bay Memories

Green Bay Memories

1948-1960's Food:
Bilotti's Pizza:
http://www.bilottispizzagarden.com
Bilotti's opened in 1956. It was established by Ray Bilotti in De Pere where it remains to this day. As a teenager in 1961 to1966 we always called it Danny's pizza and would come from Green Bay to the parlor as a group. It was "The Place to Be".  Usually we crammed into one booth. We were always starved and the pizza came out piping hot but of course we'd pull out a slice and begin to gulp down the delicious cheese topping, sauce, and thin crust in one bite. I was often tempted to order something other than a pizza but to no avail. I simply adored their food, which won a place in my memory bank of delicious pizza pie.
Kroll's East:
http://www.krollseastgreenbay.com/
Kroll's East has been open since 1935. I am sure we ate their food since 1948. My mother, Peggy Murray Flatley loved the homemade dumpling soup. She literally hummed while she was eating the soup. The chili was terrific. My sister loved the burger with a pat of butter on their very special buns. My father loved the perch plate with the bones, he swore it tasted better that way. But my favorite was their fish burger which was called a seaburger.  

(Seaburger in on the top left of the picture)

I tried ordering a seaburger anywhere else in the world and they would look confused and say"what did you want?!!"

When I attended East High School, a group of us would pile into Pam's car and rush over to Kroll's for lunch. We stuffed ourselves into a booth. The place was always hopping. We would put money into the Juke Box selection that was at every booth. Then we'd play a game with the song titles and after each title we'd add the words- 'under the covers'. This game would keep us laughing til the food appeared. I was starved and once the seaburger was placed in front of me I would rip open the carefully wrapped burger, bite into the crusty roll, oozing with tartar sauce, a pat of melting butter, fresh lightly breaded and deep fried fish and practically swoon. Oh god, could life get any better than this! Butter may have run down my chin but I was too busy chewing to worry about how I looked.

As a family we would come in on Friday and order perch plate with or without the bones.  Can you imagine...Lake perch! I currently live in New England and there's nothing like that Lake perch. Nothing! My parents would wave to friends from our large active table of seven family members. Their friend were in family groups as well. It was a community experience, it was the place to be on Friday night.