Changing Times

Hal's Restaurant, located in the old Nugget alley next to Walt and Ernie's Barbershop, closes for good this month after some 25 years, under different owners, of serving hamburgers, French fries, and the like. A friend remembers that it used to be the only place in town, except for the Hanover Inn, where you could buy a glass of beer. Owned and operated since 1972 by Don and John Sherblom, the restaurant lately specialized in vegetarian and natural foods. You could order things like whole wheat vegetarian pizza, lentil soup, homemade yogurt, or a Lewburger - a soy patty with Swiss cheese, tomato slices, and alfalfa sprouts on homemade whole wheat bread (the sprouts were sprouted in the basement kitchen).

Under the Sherblom brothers, Hal's was probably the cheapest, if not always the cleanest, place to eat in Hanover, the service was friendly, and even if you had to refill your own coffee cup, at least you got a refill. The fry cooks were good at remembering a dozen orders shouted at once from the floor - no one wrote anything down - and when you finished eating you simply told the cashier what you had.