By Jeffrey Carl
Working at the Westmoreland News in 1994 was the best summer job I ever had. I worked for peanuts and had a two hour drive each way from Richmond, but I got to do it all at a small county newspaper where I was a reporter, feature writer, copy editor, layout editor and photographer (because there was nobody else to do those things). Best of all the paper’s editor, Lynn Norris, gave me the freedom to write whatever I wanted – way more journalistic and comedic freedom than anyone should rightly give a know-it-all 21-year-old writing for a weekly in the deeply rural Northern Neck of Virginia.
The handwriting on the letter is like a child’s. Written in blue ink on lined notebook paper, double spaced, it reads like a letter home to parents from a summer camp about what a wonderful place they are at. The letter is polite and hopeful of a response, because they have a story to tell about someone they know who has great things in mind.
The letter is to the Westmoreland News, from Tom Krohn, an employee at the Happy Days restaurant in Colonial Beach. It says that Giny Trosclair, the owner – with her husband, Rudy – of Happy Days, is “a real dreamer, always coming up with new and better ideals … Like your story said, ‘Write about someone good.’ I would write about her. I really admire her.”
Tom Krohn is in middle age, with a wizened but kind face. When I call up Happy Days to ask about taking pictures, a young voice at the other end of the line says, “They want to talk to Tom Krohn!” with more than a little shock. I don’t know if many people take Mr. Krohn seriously. But what he said about Happy Days being a fun place with a dream is very true, and shows a special wisdom.
Walking into Happy Days, the first thing I heard was the Beach Boys’ “Be True to your School,” one of those songs that is so shiny and happy and cheesy that you have to like it.
It says a lot about the atmosphere at Happy Days, decorated with as many relics of the 1950s as the owners could find in their extensive search for a “Fifties feel.” Happy Days is divided into two sections, a sit-in restaurant with entertainment and a bar, and a carry-out service and bakery. There is soft-serve ice cream and yogurt, videos playing, karaoke sing-alongs, dancing and live music at nights. “A little something for everybody,” Trosclair says.
The bakery has opened up only recently, and features some surprising chefs. Al and Billy Young, owners of the original bakery in Colonial Beach, have returned to bake for Happy Days. “We were trying to recapture the way it was,” says Giny Trosclair. The bakery offers everything from donuts to fresh rolls to making all of the bread used in the restaurant. “There shouldn’t be anything we don’t have,” she adds.
Trosclair says that the 1950s decor is done to create a friendly atmosphere. “It’s always been a dream of mine, a family-oriented place,” she says. Pictures of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Elvis Presley – the 1950s’ most obviously recognizable icons – adorn the walls, conjuring up images of a restaurant stolen from the set of a high-school production of “Grease.”
The pizza is quite good, although the loaf of “French Bread” tasted more like “buttermilk biscuits.” Maybe it’s supposed to taste like French buttermilk biscuits.
Happy Days is also adding smokehouse barbecqued items and catering to its wide menu. The pictures on the restaurant walls are being taken down and framed, and Trosclair says she hopes to eventually put a 1950s automobile on the roof of the building. “There’s a lot we still have to do,” she says. And it is obvious that Happy Days is a place on the move, never at rest. “We try to have fun … we try to please everybody,” Trosclair says.
It’s Saturday night, and the band “Wild at Heart” is playing at Happy Days. It’s mainly Top 40 country, and the music is fine, but not as loud as the singer’s shirt. “They’re great,” Giny Trosclair says of them, “they’re going to be bigger than Alabama. We’re really lucky to have them booked until New Year’s.” The band is talented, and people slowly begin to get up to dance. At first, it’s two women, doing part of a country line dance that looks like some sort of Malaysian witch-doctor’s ceremony. Then a couple gets up and cuts a rug, and finally more and more people decide to bounce and sway to the music. I leave after a while thinking that Tom Krohn really has found a story of something good to write about for a change – something very good.