Transcript of interview with Jerry Fox by Barbara Tabach, November 12, 2014

AN INTERVIEW WITH JERRY FOX An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries ?Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans ii The recorded Interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iii PREFACE Jerry Fox was born on December 29, 1937 in Los Angeles, California to Abe and Ellena Fox. Jerry grew up in Los Angeles until his family moved to Las Vegas in February 1955, where his father opened Foxy's Delicatessen, the city's first Jewish deli. Jerry would go on to follow in his father entrepreneurial footsteps, operating several ventures across sectors. Jerry attended Las Vegas High School and became very involved with AZA (Aleph Zadik Aleph), a youth-led fraternal organization for Jewish teenagers. After graduating from Las Vegas High School in 1956, Jerry worked at Foxy's Deli, extremely popular with locals and visitors alike. After about ten years working for Foxy's, Jerry opened his own restaurant, Foxy Dog, in 1964. Jerry sold Foxy Dog in 1975 after going through a divorce, the same year that Foxy's Deli closed. Jerry's son, Stuart, and daughter, Francine, subsequently moved to Arizona with their mother, and Jerry engaged in new business opportunities. Jerry and his father briefly owned an Orange Julius on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street, which they sold within a year due to internal theft. Jerry then searched for his next big opportunity. He drove a taxi for about four months before taking ownership of The Tinder Box at the Boulevard Mall with Al Levy [Owned and operated from 1978-1987]. Some of his notable customers included George Burns, Robert Goulet, Jerry Lewis, and Liberace. iv After about ten years operating The Tinder Box, Jerry and his father opened a gift shop in the Riviera Hotel; Future Image carried electronic gifts and some gaming paraphernalia. From there, Jerry focused on Lasting Memories, a business-to-business disposable camera company. His last venture was with Vegas Threads, a wholesale business focusing on embroidery work. In 1978, Jerry married Mary Fox, former president of the Sisterhood at Congregation Ner Tamid, whom he lost in 2006 after twenty-eight years of marriage. NOTE: Images on previous page courtesy of Nevada State Museum. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Jerry Fox on November 12, 2014 by Barbara Tabach in Las Vegas, Nevada Preface iv - v Talks about father's work bring family to Las Vegas in 1950s; opening Foxy's Deli on Strip; discovering employee theft. Discusses Foxy's clientele; first to serve black customers; celebrities; opening own place, Foxy Dog; unique flavor of hotdogs; Foxy Dog's own celebrity customers. Mentions father's real estate business; father's philanthropic work, including for Temple Beth Sholom, donating land for Ner Tamid 1-6 More detail about father's real estate business, around town but largely in Pahrump. Talks about infamous bellhop, Red Veins, his power and influence around town; recounts story involving unforeseen conflict with mobster. Describes The Tinder Box business venture; famous clientele; brief family ownership of Orange Julius on Fremont Street. Recalls trying to get gaming licenses for businesses and being denied because of false in-law connection to Chicago mob 7-11 Discusses other family businesses, including gift shop in the Riviera Hotel; disposable camera business; and Vegas Threads for embroidery work. Reflects upon attending Las Vegas High School; friends from AZA Jewish organization; experiencing anti-Semitism. Talks about Foxy's Deli locations; father's entrepreneurship; dealing with Culinary Union. Mentions story of Shecky Greene publicizing deli on Johnny Carson Show; Liberace at The Tinder Box 12-16 Describes his relationship with the local Jewish community; Temple Beth Sholom membership; more about AZA. Talks about neighborhoods lived in with family; sister's childhood; family ancestry; grandparents moving from New York to California when father was a child. Discusses raising children in Las Vegas until divorcing first wife, when they moved to Arizona. Remembers his second wife, Mary. Mentions emergence of mob connections in 1950s 17-21 More about restaurant politics, with health department, unions. Considers city's future; concerns of being overbuilt; sustainability for gaming industry; potential water problem. Mentions Lathrop Wells, town before Test Site; visiting brothel with friends. Recalls El Rancho burning down; Foxy's being stuck with worthless chips, which were taken as currency. Mentions Foxy's Deli providing food to homeless people; providing coffee to police officers 22-26 Index 27-28 vi vii Today is November 12, 2014. I am sitting in Jerry Fox's home in Henderson, Nevada. Jerry, if you'll spell your name for the record so that we spell it correctly that would be great. J-E-R-R-Y. F-O-X. Great. And how long have you lived in Las Vegas? I've been in Las Vegas fifty-nine years. I came here in high school in 1955. The population was about thirty-five thousand. There were only six hotels. When I first arrived, when you picked up the telephone, the operator would say, "Number please," and everything was a four-digit number. One year later, in 1956, is when they opened up with the dial your number and everything was Dudley two or Dudley four. What made me come here was my dad. I had a year and a half of high school to go at Las Vegas High. My dad was from Los Angeles; we all were. He was mainly in the liquor business and other businesses, but he was going broke. A friend of his who had a restaurant and fixture supply place in Los Angeles said to my dad, "Abe, why don't you open up a deli in Las Vegas?" My dad said, "I don't know anything about the food business." The guy said, "Well, I'll loan you the fixtures and I'll help you open up and design the place. It will be across the street from the Sahara Hotel." So my dad went on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles where all the famous delicatessens, cantors and a whole bunch of others, and he got menus from those places. Then he went ahead to those delis and got a couple of cooks and said, "Move up to Las Vegas. Help me open up, and I'll pay all the expenses and I'll give you a car and everything." And this is how he got started coming up here. My dad didn't know anything about the food business. He just worked hard and we had a 1 lot of help, almost fifty employees, twenty-four hours a day. Also, we were being [robbed] in the restaurant for a long time, and my dad was ready to close the doors because he couldn't make any money. He brought in a detective agency and that's when we found out that a lot of the employees were taking items home?corn beef, pastramis, hams, roast beef. You'd sit down at the table. You'd get your check. And instead of you having four sandwiches on your check, there would be three. So now you'd leave a bigger tip and this is how the waitresses were making extra money. They would pay the cooks to not say anything about the extra sandwich or extra meal. And this is what was happening. I'm curious. This person who suggested that your dad come to Vegas? That was Harry Elster. He had a restaurant and supply place down on, I think, Los Angeles Street or Spring Street, downtown Los Angeles. Did he have business dealings in Las Vegas that made me aware of the opportunity? No. But years later, since my dad owed Harry Elster that favor because Harry Elster helped my dad get business, years later Harry Elster went broke. It was some twenty years later. So my dad was doing okay, not making a lot of money, but he was getting by. He brought Harry Elster up here to open up a restaurant and supply place. My dad was a partner and financed him. And Harry Elster started stealing from my dad. Oh, my gosh. This and that. So that dissolved itself and that's that. I read in the newspaper; there was an article back in 2004 about your dad and Foxy's Deli, and they described your dad as a practical joker. Oh, he was. Why would they say that? 2 He had a very close friend that was getting married again and the guy goes to Hawaii for his honeymoon. So my dad had a case of pineapples sent up to his room. Like, who needs pineapples? You're already in Hawaii. He just did a lot of pranks and things. He had a great sense of humor. He helped build Las Vegas in its own way. He was very charitable. In fact, my dad helped start the Golden Gloves here in Las Vegas with Hal Miller, who was on the police department. It was funny, Hal Miller had a German shepherd working with him. You know how these officers have dogs. Well, Hal Miller's dog would only understand Jewish. That's all he spoke was Yiddish, so all the dog knew were the Jewish commands that he taught him. That's funny. What else would you like? Don't worry. Relax. We're fine. So then they also said in this article that a lot of celebrities hung out at Foxy's. Oh, yes. In fact, my dad?I'm very, very proud of my father. We were the first restaurant to let blacks come in. How did that happen? How did that occur because that is one of the reasons? It just was. We never discriminated against anything and anybody. So you never didn't allow them in; you just opened your doors and they were there. So blacks would come in. A lot of the stars would come in. Then my dad would deliver to the back of the Sands Hotel where Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole, some of the black entertainers, were staying. We delivered back there because they stayed in a cottage in back of the Sands. We were the first ones to really initiate that. What did people say about that? 3 We had some black cooks. This is how that came about. Different organizations. It was mainly my dad, but he always helped me in other businesses. After Foxy's?I worked for my dad for about ten, eleven years. Then I opened up...it's called the Foxy Dog downtown by Fourth and Fremont next door to Trader Bill's. I was there for about ten, eleven years. And Foxy Dog, was that a hot dog? Yes, we're very, very famous. In fact, my sign out front made a couple of magazines. It was very different. It was a good size hot dog. At night, yellow would come down the hot dog like mustard running into the hot dog. A lot of people said my hot dogs were better than Nathan's. I marinated them. My dad always got in pickles in big barrels and I would take the brine, the juice from the pickles, and I would use one-third brine, two-thirds water, and I'd let the hot dogs marinate in these galvanized cans for about three days, four days. What did that do to the flavor? It just gave it a whole different, nice flavor. I had a relish bar, one of the first ones in the country, in Foxy Dog. I was one of the first ones in all of Las Vegas to have penny slot machines. One of my best customers at Foxy Dog was Lou Rawls. He would pull up in the Sands limousine, and he'd take about a half a dozen hot dogs and take them back to the hotel. A lot of movie stars came into my dad's restaurant. Like who? Oh, gee. You used to have Shecky Greene, Xavier Cugat, Abbe Lane, Louis Prima, Keely Smith; all the ones that played the Sahara Hotel and then a lot of other movie stars. In fact, there's one thing that happened that was very ironic. First of all, sitting in a booth one day, my dad points and my mother points, and sitting over in the booth is Howard Hughes sitting with Beldon Katleman, 4 who owned the El Rancho Hotel. The deal was made for Howard Hughes to buy the El Rancho on a napkin at Foxy's. So that was very, very exciting. You don't have that napkin, do you? No, I don't have that napkin. But we had a lot of stars, a lot of big-time stars come in. Were you working at the? For ten, eleven years I worked there. Sometimes I'd work two days without a day off. There was one time I worked a year and a half without a day off. I told my dad, "I'm going up to Reno; I want to go gamble a little bit and take off." I had worked a year and a half. He says, "Jerry, I need you, I need you." I said, "Dad, for a year and a half I've worked. I've worked double shifts, triple shifts, when cooks didn't come in and everything. I am taking off for about three days, four days." I go up to Reno and at that time I liked the dice table. So I went there and the first hour I'm there I won a thousand dollars, which that was a lot of money back then to me. I called my dad on the telephone. I said, "Dad, you're not going to believe it. I was at the crap table and I held the dice for over an hour and made a thousand dollars." He said, "I want you to go to Western Union and I want you to wire the thousand dollars to me." So I went to Western Union. At that time my dad was always short in the bank. So it took me about three months before I got my thousand back from my dad. [Laughing] That's good. So you worked there. I don't know if I caught exactly...do you remember what year you opened up Foxy Dog? Yes. I opened up Foxy Dog in 1964. Then divorce came in and I sold it in 1975. And when did Foxy's close? Foxy's was twenty years. We came here in 1955. He closed also in 1975. Then he was doing very, very well in real estate. 5 What kind of real estate did he get into? Residential? Commercial? All over, up on Sunrise Mountain. His main thing was Pahrump. He owned close to five thousand acres in Pahrump. He bought a lot of it at twenty-five dollars and fifty dollars an acre, so that made him multi. Then he backed other people into different businesses, and every time he did he would always get stuck twenty, thirty thousand here, twenty, thirty thousand there. But he was also donating to charities and everything. What were some of his favorite charities? He did a lot of the temples here in town. The original Beth Sholom, he probably put two or three hundred thousand into there. Then the new one, Ner Tamid, originally when it was over by Emerson and Eastern, my dad donated the land with...I'm trying to remember the guy's name from the furniture place. Rosencrantz? Rosencrantz. George Rosencrantz owned a furniture [store], and he was a partner with my dad on the property where Ner Tamid was going in. My dad said, "I need the write-off and I'm donating the property so they can build a temple." George says, "Abe, I don't want to donate." My dad finally talked George into donating it and that was Ner Tamid, which my dad put in the kitchen there, another. When they built a new Ner Tamid?it's now over on Valle Verde?we built a kitchen there and he put in another hundred, two hundred thousand there. So between the temples here in town, I know my dad had to put in five, six, seven hundred thousand dollars between all the [temples]. So he was very charitable. Were the kitchens then?well, even the hot dogs, were these kosher hot dogs? No, all beef. Was anything about the food preparation kosher that you did in either restaurant? 6 No. The restaurant we called kosher style. Foxy's was called kosher style. What does that mean? For non-Jewish people, what does kosher style mean? The way I understand it is that kosher, you really need to have a rabbi on the premises or the slicing machines you use have to use only the kosher meats. When I worked there I would put ham on the slicing machine, and next I could put corn beef on there or pastrami. That's why we had to call it kosher style because it wasn't strictly kosher. And it sounded like a pretty name, anyway. Right. It makes people feel a little more at home because there were so many? Sure. ?people moving here at that time. Yes. On an average, if I remember right, there were almost five thousand people a month moving here when we came here in 1955. As it kept growing to three hundred thousand, five hundred thousand?don't forget, when we came here in 1955, the population was about thirty-five thousand. So as it kept growing at a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, five hundred thousand, my dad says, "Jerry, you haven't seen anything yet. We haven't even gotten off the ground yet." He was right. But my daddy kept buying land and Sunrise Mountain, different parcels around town, but Pahrump was the main baby that really made it for him. Did he have land that the brothels were on? No. In fact, they didn't exist when I first came here. Another interesting story was that...I used to know a lot of big people here in town and one of them happened to be Nick Kelley who was the maitre d' at the Sands Hotel. In this town, it's who you know. So I called Nick one day and I said, "I need [tickets] for the twelve o'clock show tonight for myself for four." He says, "Jerry, we're all sold out." I said, "Nick, this is for me." He 7 says, "We're all sold out." At that time there was a bellhop, who was probably one of the strongest men in the country, and I mean in the country; he could get you flights and everything else. His name was Red Veins. I called Red and I said, "Red, I need for twelve o'clock tonight; I need for four for myself." He says, "You got it." So now I'm in line the next night or that evening, and I'm third or fourth in line and Nick Kelley spots me. He comes over and he says, "Hi, Foxy Junior." He says, "I'm going to tell you something. I don't ever, ever want you to go over my head again." He says, "When you need a reservation..." I said, "Nick this was for myself." He says, "Don't ever, ever go over my head again." Come to find out a year or two later, Nick Kelley was mob related in some way. So I'm lucky that I'm not buried head first out in the desert somewhere. But this Red Veins that I'm talking about...Hank Greenspun couldn't get a flight back from one of the political conventions. I think he was a Republican at that time. Apparently he found out about this guy Red Veins at the Sands; he can get you anything, a hotel room; anywhere that's sold out he could get you. Hank must have called him and Hank got a flight coming back. So Hank had wrote some kind of an article, but without mentioning Red Veins' name, and mentioned that this bellhop in Las Vegas can do more for you than the president of the United States. That's a true story. Wow. How do you think he got that power? Red Veins? I have no idea. But I know that all the hotel rooms at the Sands had TVs and he got a commission off of all the TVs in there. Every time people got car rentals, he got a kickback from the car rentals. There were times, about once or twice a year, Red would come down and walk by 8 my hot dog stand. He was a blackjack player, so he liked to gamble. So Red would come in and, "Can I borrow a hundred dollars from you?" He did this about twice a year. I knew I wasn't going to get it back. But all the favors that I needed for myself and there were other flights I got people that were sold out and hotel rooms and a lot of big favors where it did for me...So I knew I wasn't going to get the money back a couple of times a year, a hundred dollars each, but that's how powerful he was. How interesting. You made me think about so who were the entertainers that you liked to go listen to back in that era? My favorite was Mary Kaye Trio. The Characters because they played the Sahara. A lot of the lounge groups. Don Rickles. But more so with my own business, with Foxy Dog downtown, as I said before, Lou Rawls would come in. I had The Tinder Box in the Boulevard Mall and my good customers were Robert Goulet, George Burns, Redd Foxx; they would all come in buying cigars. Jerry Lewis would come in back of my counter. He collected cigarette lighters. He'd buy almost every lighter imaginable. He'd come in back of the counter. He'd start waiting on my customers. I was very shy and every time I'd get nervous when he came in. How did you get involved in that kind of business? That's a far cry from food. I got into that because I was out of divorce at that time, and I was driving a taxi for about three, four months. I was totally, totally broke. One day my dad says, "Jerry, come on with me. Meet me for lunch at the Golden Nugget downtown." So I go down to the Golden Nugget and there is Al Levy. I was in the Junior Chamber of Commerce with Al Levy. And Harry Levy, his dad, was a commissioner at one time, too. So I go over to say hello to Al, and Al says, "What are you doing now?" I say, "I'm driving a taxi and I'm broke." I said, "By the way, Al, I know you're in real 9 estate business. Do you deal with businesses?" He said, "Yes." I said, "If you run into anything, do me a favor; call my dad, but don't let him know that I told you to call him." So he must have called my dad. One day my dad says, "Jerry, come on me with me." We go over to the Boulevard Mall and right by the front door was a place called The Tinder Box, pipe and tobacco shop. My dad, he didn't let me go in the front door. He asked me to look at the window where everything is displayed. He says, "What do you think?" I say, "Well, what do you mean?" He says, "The guy's looking for a bye-in partner. I'll help you financially." I said, "I don't know anything about the business." He says, "Jerry, don't be scared. Don't be scared." Okay. Well, I'm out of divorce, paying child support and alimony. So I figured, well, my dad's going to help me bankroll it; it's better than driving a taxi. And that's how the Tinder Box came about with Al Levy. What years did you own The Tinder Box? I owned The Tinder Box from 1978 to 1987. Because in between it shows you also had an Orange Julius. My dad called me one day and he says, "Jerry, Jerry Engle"?who's a CPA here in town, me, my dad?and he says, "You, we're all going to have one-third of the Orange Julius on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont." He says, "Listen, it's only a block away from your hot dog stand. So you go down there. It'll have its own manager. It'll have slot machines in there. And you go down there and check it out once in a while; empty the slots and check the cup inventory." I would go down there, and all the sudden I would find that sales weren't right and the manager was stealing from us. I told my dad all about it and we sold it right away, within six months or a year. So Orange Julius had slot machines, too? 10 Yes, we had some machines in there. Did everything have slot machines here? Almost, if you got licensed. One of the other things was when I first got licensed for my hot dog stand downtown to have slot machines, I went before the gaming commission. All the sudden I came back the second time after filling out all the paperwork. They denied me my license. The reason they denied me was because my first father-in-law, whose name was Irving Bromberg and was from Chicago?apparently there was another Irving Bromberg in Chicago that was underworld related or something like that and they thought that he was my father-in-law. So I had to explain to the gaming commission they had the wrong person, the wrong father-in-law involved, and then they granted me my gaming license. So normally you would have no problems getting through that. Yes, clean as a whistle, never arrested, anything. Clean record all the way through. How many slot machines could you have then? Fifteen. Eventually I got into a store called Gambler's Paradise down on Fremont Street and I sold machines. You sold the machines? Yes, I sold poker machines, slot machines. I had a gaming store that was in competition with Gambler's General Store on Main Street. It was very similar to that. I sold cards, dice, all the gaming supplies. And you sold it to... ? Customers. It was a retail business. Yes. So you've had quite a variety. What was Future Image? That was in the Riviera Hotel, a gift shop. My dad says, "Jerry, you always wanted a gift shop." 11 Or something like that. He said, "The guy wants a hundred thousand dollars for the gift shop in the Riviera." It was in the back corridor where there isn't a lot of traffic. The guy wanted a hundred thousand. But he wanted it in cash because he was divorcing his wife and he didn't want his wife to know all about it. So my dad comes in one day with a briefcase of a hundred thousand cash for me to give to the guy that I'm buying out. Then I had Future Image for a few years. It never worked out real good at all and I ended up selling. I had to carry electronic gifts. They let me put in a little bit of gaming stuff. It just wasn't a very successful business. From that you went into Lasting Memories. Lasting Memories was disposable cameras. I used to sell to a lot of the hotels, a lot of the gift shops. I had most of the hotels. I had at least a dozen hotels here in town. That's when the disposable cameras were going very, very well. Eventually I got out of that because there was a lawsuit between Kodak and Fuji. A lot of the cameras that I was getting in were Fuji and it infringed on the patent. So that knocked me out of the box for a while. I got out of that. I made some money in it, not a lot, but a living. Was that like a kiosk-type operation or was it a store? No. So you had multiple? Just like a warehouse-type thing, office-type thing. And you would sell it wholesale to people. I would deliver the cases of cameras to the different hotels and everything, yes. You're quite the entrepreneur. My dad was. Also, yes, I've made the rounds. I've had my fair share. Well, you've got one more here. You've got Vegas Threads. 12 That was the last one that I was in. I did a lot of embroidery work?shirts, jackets, hats. I did several of the hotels here in town. When you're in the wholesale business, there's always somebody that will come in and give a lower price on shirts or jackets or whatever. So I started getting knocked out of the box a little bit and just couldn't make a living anymore. So I just closed it down totally and that was that. When you look back, what was it like to do business when you moved here in the fifties through the eighties? It was great. Everybody knew everybody pretty much. I've seen a couple of these shows that Channel 10 puts on. I've known so many people. I went to school with several. You graduated from high school in Las Vegas? Yes, I graduated Las Vegas High in 1956. So you were a brand-new kid here. Yes. Who were some of your friends at that time? It was mainly a lot of AZA people. Back at that time here it was very, very tough. My last year of high school I went out for the baseball team. Back then we had the old Nash Rambler station wagons and it had Foxy's Restaurant written all over it. I would drive out of the parking lot after baseball practice and I'd hear in the background, "Dirty Jew, dirty Jew." It was very, very tough on me quite a bit here because everything was Mormons and they ran the town. When I first moved here, whether you be a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, you almost couldn't pass the state bar. They would make like you didn't pass it because they didn't want any Jewish people getting licensed here. It took a long time for that. I know my dad helped some people get off the ground with that. 13 How did he do that? In what way? He just knew some of the important people here. He made friends, didn't he? Yes. Were there any other episodes of anti-Semitism? No other anti-Semitic stuff, just that a lot of Jewish people, kids go through in their earlier years. You always hear of it back East mainly. But that was the only time in high school here, when I'd leave the parking lot and I'd hear that statement. Nothing I could do about it. It was always embarrassing sometimes driving around town with Foxy's Restaurant and Deli because they always knew you were Jewish back then. But at the same time that was a very favorite place. Going back to the fact that you were integrated from the day you opened up the Foxy's Deli, did people ever react to that that you know of? Did other parts of the population...? There were maybe some people that were upset that we were allowing blacks to come in at that time. But my dad didn't care and we did a great business and everything. My dad didn't mainly make it in the food business; he really made it in the land business. Where was the location of Foxy's Deli? Right on the corner of Sahara and the Strip, Las Vegas Boulevard. First, we were the third store back. Then White Cross Drug was right next door. They moved out. So my dad knocked the wall down and enlarged. Then on the corner, I think, was Marianne's Dress Shop. They went out, and my dad knocked down the wall. So he had three stores, but made it one, but always kept the restaurant as the main one. Then when he took over the other two that's when he put in a gift shop and slot machines in there. He started making it real, real good there. But it was always land; he 14 made it in land and that was it. He originally got his start?you want the story on this? Sure. My dad never had real money at any time. But there were three guys that always came into the deli, Jewish businessmen sit around. You had Harry Wallerstein who owned Tinch Furniture; Max Goot, who was with Hollywood Furniture; and Sam Pink, who had Pink's Produce, which Sam Pink's brother is the famous Pink's Hot Dogs in Los Angeles. The three of them with my dad would sit down and one day they'd say, "Abe, we're buying this piece of property on the Boulder Highway; it's next to the Skyway Drive-In Theatre. Would you like to go in with us?" So my dad went and borrowed money and he put up five thousand dollars with the three others' five thousand, and they bought the piece of property for twenty thousand dollars. About six months later, because of long-term capital gain at that time, my dad doubled his money. He says, "Hey, I like this." My dad little by little started going in with different partners on different pieces. But my dad did something very, very clever. When he went in with other partners and when it always came time for payment to buy the property, my dad usually put his name last on the list. So in other words, the other partners had to come up with the money, the first payment and then some months later the other one, and by the time it came to my dad the property got sold for a profit, so my dad never had to come up with any money. That was clever. [Laughing] I love it. Did he have to deal in the restaurant?or either one of you?deal with the Culinary Union? Oh, yes, you had to. We almost got closed up one time because my dad for years never joined the union. Then we had to. I don't know. Maybe it might have been Al Bramlet who was the head of the Culinary Union at that time. I know my dad was very, very close with Bill Carter, who was head of the Teamsters at that time. I can't remember who was with culinary, but by that time, my 15 dad had sold out Foxy's. We had to go union; otherwise, they were going to picket. My dad couldn't fight it any longer and finally we were forced to join the union. Because it must have been hard to staff twenty-four seven, right? Oh, yes. In fact, one of those funny stories is we go to remodel some years later and we got a jackhammer going on in the r