~ Malden Musings ~ The Highland Cafe Lovefest Continues

By Peter Levine

Feelings, nothing more than feelings…and boy oh boy, did readers have feelings when they read the Highland Café manifesto/Dave Angelo/John Puleo lovefest a couple weeks back…

• Rob Smith “Space Ace” from the Kiss tribute band “Kiss Forever”: “Peter Levine this is the best write up I’ve ever read. You so captured the heart and spirit of the Highland. My wife and I have been together 40 years…raised 4 daughters in the city. Highland Café was center to so many memories to us. Our first date September 1985… Highland Café. Our wedding reception at Irish American 1992…Highland Café catered; 4 baptisms… 4 first communions, anniversaries… 2 funerals of my wife’s parents. All Highland Café! And I will never enjoy a pizza anywhere on the planet that can touch a Highland Café pizza. Their hamburger pizza was to die for. My dream is that Dave Angelo opens his own restaurant and dusts off that sacred pizza recipe and resurrect the legend of Highland Café. Thanks for bringing back the memories!”
• Tom Trahant: “Grew up on Malden Street around the corner from the Highland. So, so many great memories. It’s hard to believe in today’s world but my mom and grandmother would send us over to the Highland to get a pizza (plus) and say, ‘tell Johnny to charge it!’ True story. We could charge it and my mom, who worked at the Converse Rubber in the ‘Rubber Shop,’ would stop in and pay on pay day. Never happen in today’s world. Thank you again Peter for keeping the memories alive.”
• Larry Donoghue: “Nice article Peter. I have fond memories of the Highland. When my wife and I were first married (late 1970’s) she worked the 3 to 11 PM shift at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. The Highland was our usual stop for late night/post shift pizza (and the occasional adult beverage).”
• Dorothy Dukes: “In the 50’s my dad Ralph Mazza was the bartender for many years before the Puleo’s bought. Also, my mother Anna and my aunts Wendy Lyons and Margaret Cruciotti were waitresses.”
• Michelle Markey Olivier: “Such good memories there! My first slice of pizza was at the Highland. My parents and grandparents took my brother and I there on many occasions. I remember going with my nana for tripe and she always ordered a glass of Cold Duck! Thanks for bringing me down good ole memory lane (many other good spots right up the street a bit also).”
• Rudy Trulli: “Back in 1952 when I was born at Malden Hospital, they didn’t let the men in the delivery room so my dad gave the doctor the phone number for the Highland Café and said he would be waiting there for the call.”
• Debbie Esposito: “The BEST PIZZA and some of greatest times!! The Highland was my last stop before going home after a long day/night working at Anthony’s of Malden (of course) with my (waitress) friends for a cold one or two and of course a pizza and some KENO (1st place I’d ever played it). From the moment I started reading your post Peter I got an instantaneous reaction to the smell, the taste and a visual of the pizza ‘pie’ that came hot straight outta the oven and onto the table. God, I can almost taste it!!! There was NO place like home but at The Highland Café! Good times and great people!! Thank you, Dave Angelo (and Johnny Puleo), for the best pizza (hands down)! Because of the Highland I got to sit down and get to know some pretty amazing women from EDGEWORTH, to name a few of these iconic women, Peggy Gennetti, and the late Mrs. Cagno and Anna Puleo Ardolino such wonderful ladies and women I consider my friends. I miss these times but hold near and dear the memories we shared over pizza and KENO! Thank you, Peter, for taking me down memory lane now I am hungry for The Highland Café not just any pizza…Dave’s!!!!”
• Paul Mahoney: “Great article, Peter. Warm memories of the Highland. My father was a regular on one of the bar stools and my wife & I finished up our first date with a late-night pizza at the Highland!”
• Rick Malatesta: “Well written article. Written from the heart! Clams and pizza with Frankie Mauriello, Mark Santonelli, Louis Laconi and Steve DiSano! And the prior owner, Julie Miola, married to Mary (my aunt Carmen’s sister) who lived in the house right next to the parking lot on Malden St. Thanks for rekindling the memories!!”

Craig Sanford speaks of Linden Maldonia USA: “Great memories Chris (Moro). When I moved back from the Midwest this corner in the picture with the ‘For Sale’ sign is where I ended up living. On the corner of Beach and Oliver just a stone’s throw from my original house on Oliver Street. Thought we were so lucky being back and now so close to Robinson’s and Linden Square. A lot had changed in the Square since moving away, but still very familiar. I was able to reconnect with most of my earlier friends from Linden (too many to mention in this post) and make new friends along the way at Malden High. My parents originally lived on Eastern Ave when they got married in ’59, and by coincidence at Bobby May’s grandmothers house on the second floor where Bobbie and his family eventually moved into. This was before my younger brother Glenn came along. We then moved to 97 Oliver Street across the street from my uncle Johnny & Aunt Roberta’s home and their 5 kids. Later Jimmy Graffam and his family moved in next door to us before my family moved towards the end of 6th grade. My memories are flooded with playing street hockey on Oliver, Clapp and Lawrence Street. Football in the side yard at the Engine 6 Fire Station, and countless games of basketball, kickball and whiffle ball with whomever was around to join us! Hanging out on Coleman, Maynard, Bellvale, and Springdale Streets with friends and getting into all types of trouble. In the winter waiting for Linden Park to get flooded so we could ice skate and getting a pickup game of baseball in the summer from some of kids we knew who lived in the projects. Those were the times when we were told to go outside and don’t come home until the streetlights came on! If we ever told our parents where we went, I would just be getting out of my room right about now. It was great seeing everyone at the class reunion, and I hope everyone appreciates what it means to be from LINDEN!”

As Peter Falk’s iconic TV character Columbo would say, “Just one more thing, sir” – Malden Musings Redux: Old warhorse Billy Conserva (related to just about everybody in Malden) read my holiday article and had some heartfelt words to share: “I’m sitting here reading all this…and the joy of these memories are more painful than pleasant. Not saying I don’t want to remember them – actually, I want to relive them. If I could save time in a bottle…so the song goes, I would save Malden in the 70’s and 80’s. The kids on the corner (Whitman and Highland) throwing snowballs at buses! Ski patrolling in front of Pumpsy’s where my grandmother would be making ‘Saucy Subs’ for a dollar! Gloria Fucci making meatballs. My grandfather Pumpsy coming in from being down the bar at Anthony’s with my uncle Sonny! Talking about what he got my grandmother for Christmas and what different friends would bring into the bar for sale. This was the greatest time of my life, and I want it back. Merry Christmas!” “I want it back” – that killed me, my old friend. Hope you had a great Christmas, Billy, and much happiness in the New Year.

Postscript 1: Short Devir story of which few details are currently available except through the mind’s eye. The year is 1969, the family is in the ’66 Buick LeSabre heading home from visiting Nonni in Charlestown right after The Ed Sullivan Show. It’s about 9 p.m. and we get to Devir on the Fells heading towards Charles when we look over at the Bandstand in the middle of the park as we pass on by. On the roof of the Bandstand is a giant white peace sign painted big, bold and bright in all its anti-war glory. Two days later it was gone. Just goes to show the powers that be in city government can work quickly if they so choose (insert smiley face). Anybody else remember the sign and could flesh this story out a bit?

Postscript 2: Bowman Street’s Kevin Larson reaches into that massive brain of his once again and with the best words… “4 Christmas seasons selling Christmas trees in the lot at King Neptune on Highland Avenue for that visionary fried clam entrepreneur Don Ashcraft. I got 2 dollars per tree commission. Freezing cold, with Bobby ‘Brother of Judy & Kim’ Bionelli and Dickie ‘Loving Husband of Kim B’ Santos sneaking me out French Fries to keep warm. Ohhhh, my beautiful Edgeworth memories! I just cannot shake that Edgeworth feeling! Happy New Year, Malden!”

—Peter is a longtime Malden resident and a regular contributor to The Malden Advocate. He can be reached at PeteL39@aol.com for comments, compliments or criticisms.