Joe and Nemo and "One All Around"

First generation immigrant from Italy, Joe Merlino, ran this barbershop on Stoddard Street, just across from the Old Howard. Outside, his friend Izzy sold hot dogs from a steaming cauldron. In 1909, Joe bought a bar next store and invited Izzy inside to sell his dogs. When Izzy left town, Joe brought barber Anthony Caloggero (nicknamed, "Nemo" after a popular comic character) to take Izzy's place. The two men decided to name their hot dog emporium/bar after themselves. And that is where we get the name Joe and Nemo.

 Joe and Nemo were not related when they started the business, though it was staffed by family members from both partners, such as Nemo's brother, Samuel.  In 1919, Anthony - that's Nemo - married a girl named Susan Loverde in a ceremony in which Joe was the best man and Susan's sister, Lillian, was the Maid of Honor. A year later, another wedding made Joe & Nemo's a one family business when Joe married Lillian.  This meant that Joe and Nemo were not only partners but each other's brother-in-law, too.  (Cynics might suggest this makes the longevity of their enterprise even more remarkable...)  

 When Prohibition arrived in 1920 Joe and Nemo had to close the bar. To make up for lost business they opened a restaurant on Stoddard Street, which ran from the front entrance of the Old Howard to Cambridge Street.  The restaurant wasn't the biggest in Boston - in fact it may have been the smallest... so small that the two men actually had to sell their hot dogs outside the store, even in winter.  Many West Enders fondly recalled Anthony "Doc" Lopez, the man who served them hot dogs from a steaming cauldron.  Picture courtesy of the West End Museum

In 1928, in an effort to alleviate congestion from increased automobile traffic, the city widened Cambridge Street. This cut Stoddard Street in half. Joe & Nemo's, once located in the middle of of the street, was now at the corner of Stoddard and Cambridge Streets, Cambridge Street was one of Boston's major thoroughfares, which only increased the restaurant's popularity. 

In 1933, when Prohibition was repealed, Joe and Nemo applied for and got one of the first liquor licenses issued in the city.  A few years earlier Joe had bought the building next-door, so when Prohibition ended they broke through the wall to make a bar and dining area on the second floor.  Prices were low everywhere because of the Depression, but here one found food that was not only cheap, but good, too.  A steak dinner was only thirty-five cents as was a full breakfast of eggs, bacon, home fries, toast, and coffee.  But the main reason for going was still the hot dogs.  What was it about those things that made them taste so good? First of all, it was the dogs themselves, made from a special formula by the New England Provision Company (NEPCO).  Second, it was the way they were cooked.  Ed Insogna explained:

"We steamed the rolls and cooked the dogs in water.  We did not boil the dogs, never!  The skin breaks and that releases the flavor into the water and the dogs don't taste as good.  That was part of the secret.  People could buy the dogs [uncooked, to take home] and they would come back and say "they don't taste the same. That was probably why."

Thanks to the inexpensive food and great location, Joe & Nemo's soon became one of the most popular places to eat in Boston.  Joe and Nemo, both interviewed in 1953 by the Boston Herald's "Roving Eye," Rudolph Elie, indicated just how popular the place was.  First, Joe: We got three shifts going with 78 men and nine cooks on the jump.  we close only for an hour and a half a day, too, shutting down at 3:30 in the morning and opening up again at five and that's only to clean up.  Nemo added “I guess we're in an institution.  People come from all over.  They heard about us from some sailor or somebody somewhere, and they gotta have "one all around" (Boston Herald, November 20, 1953).

What does "one all around" mean, anyway?  Joe's son Frank has been asked that question many times.  For the uninitiated, he explained the expression to the Boston Post one day:

When my dad first opened up he used to serve hot dogs with mustard, relish, onions and horse radish.  But it takes a long time for a customer to order a hot dog with mustard, relish, onions and horse radish.  So they just made that up to save time.  The horse radish was eventually dropped from the all-around because, as Frank explained, "the younger generation doesn't care for it." But Frank admits he lives in fear of the day when some really old Bostonian will wander down from the Odd Volumes Club, order one all around, bite into it and then bellow: "What, no horse radish?" (Boston Herald, February 7, 1944).

BTW, we LOVE finding pictures we've never seen before. This great shot from the 1950s is from Nick Dewolf's collection on Flickr 

 Servicemen swarmed to Joe & Nemo's.  A big reason was that when liberty time brought them into Boston the one thing they did not want to do was spend a lot of time or money on dinner.  Lonely months at sea had given them other priorities, so Joe & Nemo's was the perfect place to go, especially with the Old Howard just a few feet from the front door.  This created a loyalty that servicemen of all branches carried with them all over the world.  Strangers who meet on a battlefield often began conversations by exchanging hometowns.  Those who called Boston their home were said to often be met with the reply of, "Boston!  Boy, could I go for a Joe & Nemo's hot dog right now!"  Legend has it that Joe & Nemo's was the site of several "reunions" for soldiers and sailors who met in the heat of battle during World War II.  As shells burst overhead, pledges were made to meet at Joe & Nemos on such-and-such a date after the war was over..  But the prize for loyalty must go to the members of Battery C of the First Battalion of the 211th Coast artillery in Pearl Harbor (shown above.)  Outside their thatched "recreation" hut at Pearl Harbor, they eased their homesickness with a reminder of happier times:  a sign over the door which said "JOE & NEMO'S"