Timewarp + Two Burgers = $8

Egg creams. Shiny jukeboxes listing Elvis and Buddy Holly. Waitresses on roller skates who serve you at your car window. For people born in the 1970s, these images bring the era of our parents into our heads – like Ozzie & Harriet or Leave It To Beaver.

While there’s plenty about that era we’re glad to leave in the archives with Beaver, there’s something special about finding a restaurant that sends you to a time when a movie cost a quarter and a 12 oz. soda set you back a dime.

For the lucky folks who visited Montclair’s Soda Pop Shop before it closed (with its authentic memorabilia from the 1950s and 1960s), Bloomfield offers us an equally tasty and inexpensive option in Holsten’s, which opened in 1939. Located on Broad St., Holstens isn’t a new diner trying to dress itself up like it’s old-school. It’s a genuine icream parlor with a counter stretching along half the store on one side for hanging out & eating, and a counter across from it for buying homemade candy. The candy and ice cream are both made right there. Roomy booths fill up the back. That’s where we went to sit.

Unlike Montclair’s Soda Pop Shop which had aqua-chrome-vinyl booths, the colors in Holsten’s are less flashy, more muted reds and brown, which is actually kind of relaxing. The Soda Pop Shop was lively with loud music and patrons, and Holsten’s is more relaxed.

While their prices remind you you’re no longer in 1955, they’ll also prove you’re not in NYC. My companions and I enjoyed a tasty, filling meal for about $42, including several drinks and desert.

My friends enjoyed fountain soda (no free refills), while I had a pulpy and tart lemonade that made my whole face pucker. My husband had a twin-burger platter that came with potato salad and coleslaw for just $8, while I had a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato (which was surprisingly not greasy or soggy), and Madame Managing Editor had a grilled taylor ham and cheese with onion rings. Taylor ham, you should know, was created in New Jersey. The onion rings were made with batter as opposed to breading, which joined the flavors, saving them from being a sliver of slimy onionbreaking off from a wall of fried dough (and making them far superior to the ones from the Soda Pop Shop, I’m told).

Despite being achingly full, we knew we couldn’t leave without trying the ice cream. I had a chocolate ice cream float – towering! – while my companions had a brownie sundae with vanilla ice cream, and a chocolate egg cream (a first for the three of us). Three words that will keep me coming back:

Homemade Whipped Cream.

(and that’s not even with extra whipped cream.)

The only complaint was that the fudge with the brownie sundae was not warm.

So, if you’re looking for a nice, inexpensive place to take a date, or for a hangover cure with your friends, this place is one to try. Although, it made me think I should start a “How to Eat Healthy in Jersey” column to keep from indulging in deliciously unhealthy food. While I may not be old-fashioned like Mr. Cosmopolitan, I can enjoy an unpretentious meal, in a laid-back place that let’s me experience – if just for a moment – such “simpler” eras. Of course, nothing was ever so simple, but I’m glad the food still is.

Now read this follow-up piece.

Holsten’s
1063 Broad Street
Bloomfield
(973) 338-7091

— by Donna M.
Donna is both a Jersey native and recent transplant from NYC. She is executive editor and a co-founder of GoOutJersey.

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