A Three Day Weekend And A Farewell To Palace Of Wong

We are still a little behind on the blog. This post is for the week ending October  25th. We hope to be caught up soon!

Another three day weekend had arrived. We have saved enough days to extend a lot of weekends. Beginning in mid-November, there will be no full weeks. All of them will be shortened by vacation or holiday. It will give us extra days to go saling...or extra days to decorate for Christmas. For now, we were just thinking about what to do with this extra day in October. We didn't have to think too hard.

Our saling adventures began on Wednesday this week. There is a semi-annual church sale that we always visit. It always begins on a Wednesday and so do we. This church sale, like so many others, does not have the type of things that they use to have but you never know. We met there after work and searched through, and beneath, all of the tables. There wasn't much there but we did come home with a couple of small holiday decorations. 

Friday came and our weekend began. We definitely wanted to go saling and these clown booths were at one of the sales. Rob would have loved this. Monica...well, not so much. We did not go to the sale that featured them but we did find three other potential sales. One stood out above the rest and that would be our target. If we had time, we could try to stop at the others. With a destination set, off we went!  

Sale #1 was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies and was almost an hour away from our house. It was advertised as a moving sale where "all goes". The pictures of the sale showed that the house had a lot of old things inside. It was worth a search.

The basement had an old bar and Rob searched behind it thoroughly. The basement had a great old floor too! 

There was a mounted pencil sharpener in the basement and we always consider that to be a good sign.

The main floor had a great pink bathroom, pretty much untouched by time.

The bathroom floor was great!

We spent an hour searching through three floors and came away with lots of old cookbooks, a pair of tiki idols, some old honeycomb holiday decorations, a record and a few other things.

By the time we were done, we decided to break for lunch and then go home to relax a bit. We had another sale planned for the evening and neither of the other two daytime sales seemed all that great. We were also hungry now. We knew where we wanted to go.

Krisch's Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlour has roots going back to when it first opened in Brooklyn in 1920. In 1955, it moved to its present location in Massapequa. It is not exactly as it was since it first landed here (the windows were, certainly, not painted then) but much remains from its origin in this spot.

Their great neon signs remain from their creation in 1955! 

The booths are designed to look like they stepped out of the 1950's

The table pattern is boomerang and, while it is repro boomerang, it is still boomerang...and that's good! 

The counters and the stools are great...

...as are the tables and chairs. A lunch of a cheeseburger and fries tastes even better when surrounded by this! We have been here before and we will be here again! 

On Friday evening, We had the annual sale in Monica's hometown to attend. Monica has gone here every year since she was a kid. The sale used to be held in December but it was moved to October last year. Although the sale runs on both Friday and Saturday, we always are there for the opening on Friday night. 

We had to race the horses in the playground to get to the door first! 

We did! When we got inside the door, we were amongst the first ones there

There were lots of tables to search and search we did! When we were done, we left with an old Pyrex dish, lots of booklets, some DVD's, a Chinese Checker board for 1938 and a few other things.

If our hands weren't full, we might have stopped at the playground. We love that they still have these old metal playground toys like the horses and this one above. We both remember this from our childhood. Rob used to call it "the turtle" because it reminded him of a turtle's shell.

When Saturday arrived, we had six sales on our list but none that were spectacular. We did, however, have a special guest aboard. Lenny, Monica's brother-in-law, said he would come along for the ride when we had stops nearby and our first three sales were near our house (Lenny lives one town over from us). Today seemed like a good day to invite him and he anxiously came along.

Sale #1 was run by a tag sale company that we know and there was absolutely nothing in the description of the sale that drew us here but the pictures in the ad showed an older house and, on a day where the potential sales looked very weak, that was enough to make the list.

We really liked these shelves in between the two rooms. Lots of goodies could be displayed there!

This lampshade was really cool, too. Starburst!

We would have loved to pick up this but there were some serious chips on this. One of the elves had a missing ear. We passed on this.

There were lots of trains for the train collectors of this world. Lenny posed for a picture with them. Since none of us are train collectors, these did not come home with us. What did leave with us was a baseball game from 1971, some records and a small ceramic cat.

Our second stop was at a church sale nearby. Church sales are definitely not wat they used to be but are always worth a look. Monica and Lenny were ready to see what was here. 

The sale was primarily outdoors. While there were plenty of tables, there were not a lot of things for us. We left with two larger ceramic cats and a vintage pin for Monica.

Our third stop was at a tag sale run by one of our favorite tag sale companies and we knew, in advance, that we would not find anything for us here. We went, simply, to say hello to our friends at the tag sale company since they were in our neighborhood. It was great to see them. We left empty-handed, as expected.

The second half of our day would be spent forty minutes to our west and it would be without Lenny who we would bring back home but not before stopping for breakfast together. It was great to have him aboard and we know that he will come with us to future sales.

Sale #4 was another church sale and, as a bonus, their thrift shop was open. There wasn't too much here but we did find one ceramic Christmas angel and that came home with us.

Sale #5 was described as "entire unusual contents" and listed "60's furniture" and "Christmas" amongst the items. There were no pictures in the ad but the description was interesting enough to draw us here.

There was an old bar and Rob wasted no time searching it! 

There was also a mounted pencil sharpener. That was a good sign! 

There were three floors to search and the description of the sale was pretty accurate. We spent a good amount of time here and came away with some old New Year's Eve noisemakers, a record, several old holiday honeycomb decorations and one amazing halloween die-cut decoration from the 1950's. It was a good stop! 

Our last sale also had no pictures in the ad but the words "antiques" and "old books" appeared in the description and since it was just a few minutes from the previous sale, we figured that it was worth a visit. The sale was run by the owner of a tag sale company that we love but it was not under her company's banner. It was a garage sale for one of her employees. There wasn't a whole lot here but we did find a great aluminum pitcher and cup set from the 1950's and a pair of records.

Here is what we brought home this weekend:

Some records

Some more records

Some DVD's...three DVD's filled with Rocky and Bullwinkle episodes, The World Of Sid & Marty Krofft (with episodes of H.R. Pufnstuf, Land Of The Lost, Sigmund & The Sea Monster, Lidsville and more), the original Batman movie from 1966 and Here Comes Peter Cottontail (the 1971 Rankin Bass special).

Pet guides from the 1950's and 1960's

More pet guides from the 1950's and 1960's

Cookbooks

More cookbooks

Holiday honeycomb decorations in their packages

More holiday honeycomb decorations

A Halloween die cut decoration

An old ice pop making kit, a vintage pin for Monica and some Easter decorations

An aluminum pitcher with six aluminum cups from the 1950's

A 1971 baseball game, some old New Year's Eve noisemakers, a ceramic "December" angel (marked Japan), a small bottle brush tree and a Pyrex dish

Ceramic cats (all marked Japan), a rubber duck, two tiki idols (made in Hawaii) and a wooden Chinese Checker board from 1938

Saturday evening, October 24, 2015, was the last night that the iconic Palace Of Wong was open for paying customers. It had been around since 1967 and was one of our favorite Chinese restaurants.

On Sunday, October 25th, they opened their doors for a free buffet for their loyal customers so that they could say goodbye. We knew we needed to go...and we did.

We saw the giant shark in the dining room

Rob tried to tame the shark

The waiters also tried to tame the shark

Finally, the shark was subdued! 

The little bar station that was the home of the tiki mugs that we always drank from when we were here. Most of them were missing.

The remaining tiki mugs and a whale in between

We will miss the wall hangings in the dining room

We'll miss all of the signs on the outside of Palace Of Wong

We will miss the neon cocktail lounge sign

We will miss the iconic neon Chow Mein sign

We will miss David Wong, the owner.

We will miss the amazing Palace Of Wong

Goodbye, David, and goodbye Palace Of Wong. We will miss you. Thank you for all of the great memories!