How old were you then?

I was about 35 years old.

Newsday said the property had been closed for while before you took over.

Yes, the owner [Murray Hadfield] went to Florida and had some problems, and he put it up for sale.

Do you know how long it was closed?

Oh, I think it was closed maybe one summer because it was run down and he, of course, had to make a deal to get out of the property himself; he had some debt that he had to resolve. Oh, it was a short time; it was one summer. I took it over right after the summer [October 5, 1956].

I always believed in working into the community as part of a going business. So I became very active in the Oceanside Board of Trade right away. They were happy to see someone take over the property, renovate it and bring it back to life. Nothing was happening or developing along Long Beach Road because the Roadside Rest was a rundown operation. A lot of people weren't renewing their leases. But we put a little "jazz" into the whole community.

What attracted you to invest in the Roadside Rest?

Long Beach Road was a major road to go to the Atlantic Ocean and to Long Beach, and that's why I thought we did enough investigations to see what was happening on Long Island after the war ended. People were coming back from all over the world, and they were really moving out to the Island. That's when Levitt built their major community, and housing developed on Long Island. 

When you took over in 1956 or early 1957, did you remove the round tables [shown in post cards circa 1940] and put in the picnic tables?

Yes, we had to change them almost right away 'cause a lot of them were rusted -- not in good shape; they were metal tables.

When you operated the Roadside Rest before it was Nathan's, were you serving Nathan's hot dogs?

They were made by the same company that made Nathan's hot dogs, and I had arrangements to have them made with the same formula that Nathan's was using. The formula was my mother's formula, the spice formula, and I wanted to make sure that the quality and the standards were of that type.

So they were effectively the same hot dogs.

Absolutely. Of course, we had a little battle between the companies, but we worked things out
-- fortunately.

Were the fries the same?

Certainly, yes, absolutely. We used Mazola corn oil, and the potatoes came from Maine. The Maine potato was the best potato for frying. I took my knowledge that I developed in Coney Island when I was there and used that to develop the Murray-Oceanside operation.

We would like the entire Handwerker family to know how much we appreciate the many, many hours of pleasure over 20 years and incredible memories that Murray gave to the people of our home town and the surrounding Long Island area by saving our beloved Roadside Rest and turning it into a Nathan's Famous. We will always treasure those memories.

According to a death notice placed in the New York Times by his family, "He will be remembered for bringing love, happiness and fond memories to so many people." His loving wife of 67 years, Dorothy, had passed away almost two years earlier in June 2009. May they rest in peace together.

The foregoing appears to be the only interview of Murray (with Dorothy) online and probably his last, according to their son, Bill, author of Nathan's Famous: The First 100 Years (whom we spoke to in 2015). The only online obituary found for Murray that mentioned our cherished Nathan's Roadside Rest in our little town, is in a web-based column (which is also linked to this page) called "The Eulogizer" of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) that highlights the life accomplishments of famous and not-so-famous Jews who have passed away.