This week we go back to Thanksgiving of 1935—when the holiday fell on Nov. 28, as it does this year, and you could get a full dinner in Hillsdale for just one dollar.
The advertisement above came from Koenig’s Hofbrau in Hillsdale. And while the ad goes back 84 years, Koenig’s existed well into the 1960s and is fondly remembered by many Pascack Valley residents.
The restaurant, founded by German-born George Koenig Sr., was located at the present location of the Kings/Walgreens shopping center. An opening announcement from 1933 proclaims, “You, your family and friends are cordially invited to attend the opening of Koenig’s Old Fashioned Beer Garden…Here, you can indulge in a refreshing glass of beer amidst beautiful surroundings, cooled by the shade of stately trees, and enhanced by the sweet song of a babbling brook.”
In 1934 Koenig applied for a permit to add a dance hall, which would prove to be a lucrative move. With its bar, ballroom, restaurant and outdoor beer garden, Koenig’s became the go-to location for dinner-dances, celebrations, club meetings, parties, and fundraisers.
Just months after this Thanksgiving ad came out, Koenig’s sustained $15,000 worth of damage in a fire in February 1936. Volunteer firefighters spent more than three hours fighting the blaze, hampered by near-freezing temperatures that saw water from the fire hoses quickly freezing on the building and pavement. Expensive antiques, silverware, china and beer steins brought by the owner from Germany were destroyed, but the firemen were able to save the ballroom.
The place reopened not long after, and operated for decades before two successive fires in the summer of 1968 sealed the deal. By that time the site was already being considered for redevelopment as a strip mall.
