As a proud Rochesterian, I feel I need to respond to Carlie Danielson’s section of The Voice’s Spring Break article (“Spring Break 2003: Destination America,” Jan. 16). While your first paragraph painted an accurate picture of Rochester’s mundane suburban life, your second paragraph on the so-called “trash plates” was purely blasphemous.
How on earth can you write about these types of restaurants without mentioning the grandfather of them all, Nick Tahou’s? Nick’s was the first place in Rochester to come up with the “garbage plate” back in the late ‘30s. You clearly have not had one of these legendary plates, because if you had, you would not only have mentioned them by the correct name, but would also have known that a garbage plate consists of mac salad and home fries underneath the traditional burger, hot dog, etc. selection. Although beans are an option, customers know that they are not to be ordered. The whole ordering experience is much like the soup nazi—you order one way and one way only.
Garbage plates are not just “crowd-pleasers with the bums on Monroe Avenue and the boozed-up youth of suburbia.” My parents grew up in the nearby area, and back in the day Nick’s was their late night hangout. Whenever we are all together at home, my family still does family dinners at Nick’s. And trash plates, landfill plates etc. only came into being because Nick’s has a copyright on “garbage plates.” The sign out front reads: “Nick Tahou’s Hots, Home of the Garbage Plate.” Nick passed away about five years ago, but he is surely rolling in his grave after getting wind of this article.
Jen Taillie (NHS ‘03)
