Little Red Hen makes Green Lake a little bit country

Originally published Saturday, January 4, 1997

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

That beaten path around Green Lake isn't nearly as well-worn as the path generations of regulars have beaten to the nearby Little Red Hen restaurant.

This is where the non-jogging crowd comes for a hearty $1.95 breakfast of homemade biscuits and country gravy, with maybe a Cuervo Gold chaser at 6 in the morning.

The only honest-to-goodness country music restaurant and bar in the North End, the Little Red Hen at Green Lake is a one-size-fits-all sort of place, where you can dance and hoot and holler after sundown and knock back some Jack Daniel's, or you can show up before sunrise for coffee and the best looking breakfast this side of Mom's.

A Green Lake institution with several decades tenure, Sylvia's Little Red Hen is what too many restaurant-bars ain't: a "Cheers" sort of place where Debbie, the bartender, knows everybody's name, and everybody seems to know a little something about everybody else. They have annual picnics and holiday parties and a contribution jar every Christmas for an adopted family-in-need.

The corporate wheels from the Vitamilk Dairy next door have their own regular table for lunch. The rest of the trade, including weekday regulars and weekenders, is a mixture of blue collar, three-piece suits and jeans. And, of course, skirts. But the regulars far outnumber the occasional customers.

Matter of fact, one longtime regular still maintains a presence there several years after he checked out. Ensconced on the back bar in a little glass case is the funeral urn of ashes of John Booten.

"John used to sit over there at the end of the bar, by the telephone," said Debbie Tuttle, who has worked behind the plank for almost two decades. "And he was always smoking a cigar. . . . That's why you see a cigar tucked up alongside the silver urn."

The Little Red Hen almost went with him. Cindy and Dean Olsby, the sister/brother grandchildren of founder Sylvia Hering, sold the property last year, not long after their mom, Judy Olsby, died. A big closing bash already had been scheduled when Lee Hirschhorn rode in on a white horse and offered to buy the business and lease the property.

To hear him tell it: "What did I, a nice Jewish boy from New York, know from country-western?! When I came here, I turned on a local radio station and listened to some country and said to myself: This will never work!

"But I came in here one night, with the band playing and about 150 people dancing and having a helluva good time, and that was it!"

Not only did he keep the Little Red Hen alive -- they had a grand re-opening party on the day scheduled for the closing bash -- he immediately installed new refrigeration and a behind-the-bar dishwasher.

The workers were kept on, and Debbie was lured out of a too-early retirement. And many of the older regular customers drifted back in. Debbie is once again there for them, every weekday, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Also on the dawn patrol is Jean E. (that's "Jeanie" to all her Hen friends) Smith, the cook who came to Green Lake via the old 318 Tavern and several other old-line establishments. "Once the word gets out about her homemade biscuits and gravies and sauces, that'll bring in more customers," Hirshhorn said.

"This place almost runs itself," he said. "Why, there's a whole room in the basement -- at least twice the size of my office -- filled with decorations for every holiday. And a retired Boeing worker by the name of Lee Porter comes in with friends before every holiday and does the whole place . . . because she likes to do it!"

Most nights, the joint is jumping. But at 6 a.m. (the Olsbys had cut back to an 8 a.m. opening) and up till about mid-morning, the 1940-ish bar with its mirrored walls and ceiling is sort of a clubhouse. Al Voegele, a retired candy maker, starts every weekday with coffee, then breakfast, at the bar.

"Jockey Jack," in his mid-70s, still takes his regular place at the other end of the bar from where Booten held court. "Jack's so regular that when he comes in, whoever might happen to be sitting there gets up and moves!" said Debbie.

Debbie runs a tight ship -- no one gets away with really bad language or offensive behavior -- but she has one firm rule: "No grouches . . . everyone here has gotta be happy!" she said. The only unhappies are the infrequent customers she might cut off for showing signs of overdoing the bar thing.

Which is not the same as overstaying. This is one of those bottomless coffee cup places where you can schmooze with friends for hours without getting hustled or ignored. And there are numerous married couples who do their daily socializing here.

"There are maybe a half-dozen couples who met here and got married," said Debbie, adding: "And they're still married!"

About the only thing missing after all these years is the hunk of B-17 fuselage with the "Alice Blue Gown" pin-up picture. The story goes that Dick Hering, the original owner, hauled it home from a military scrap yard in Arizona. And the pinup supposedly is of -- certainly looks like -- his wife, Sylvia. Their grandchildren took it when they sold to Hirshhorn, but he's replacing it with an enlarged old photo of a very leggy Sylvia in a vampy pose on someone's yacht.

And that's a little bit of classy local history you ain't gonna find in the new yuppie joints closer to the lake.

Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I.