The Greatest Culinary Wonder of New York (State)
By: David C. Mccombs
Tags: New York, Restaurant, Food, Upstate New York, Exclusives

[Photograph: Eugene Peretz]

There’s a very real chance one of the best-kept secrets in the ever-shifting and world-famous culinary universe of New York is soon to be not that much of a secret.

No, not that New York. Today’s topic comes from upstate, a place residents of New York City have mapped out for us:

Eighty percent accurate, actually.

That map is…really somewhat practical, if you’re not from upstate. But, to the surprise of many, upstate New York does have cities, and the focus of our story, Rochester, is one of them. Here’s what a map of upstate New York actually looks like:

Without rakes and shovels, the cities of upstate are technically inaccessible. [Map: Britannica Online for Kids]

Rochester lies directly at the center of the blue circle, and everyone living inside that circle is already in on the secret.

It’s a dish known as the Garbage Plate, and it may very well be the greatest invention since sliced bread. The name may not whet your appetite, but the presentation of the dish makes its accuracy pretty clear.

A Plate consists of any two “hots” items — burger patties, hot dogs (white or red), fish fillets, chicken tenders, grilled cheese, or eggs (or any combination of the above!). On the side, you might have regular French fries, but home fries are more common. For your second side, you can choose either baked beans or macaroni salad. Topping the dish off is a meat hot sauce that’s been made in-house for decades, and the whole thing is served with two pieces of Italian bread.

It’s wildly popular, and, as Rochesterians will have you know, never having eaten one means you’re terminally unlucky. Woefully ignorant. Not at one with the universe.

No, really. Folks there love a good Plate. It’s a Styrofoam container straight from heaven. But! We know restaurants aren’t typically stocked or staffed by angels, thus begging the question: Who’s responsible for such addictive cooking?

The Garbage Plate was created by, and is still synonymous with, a restaurant called Nick Tahou’s. The founder, Alex Tahou, first opened the restaurant’s doors in 1918, and it’s been serving up Garbage Plates ever since. Currently, the store is operated by the grandson of the founder, also named Alex Tahou, under the name of Steve T. Hots and Potatoes. But never mind that new label — to anyone who actually eats there, it’ll always be Tahou’s.

Small though it is, the restaurant has racked up an impressive résumé of television and film appearances, including on Food Network’s Unwrapped and The Best Thing I Ever Ate, on the Travel Channel’s Man v. Food Nation and Chowdown Countdown, in the movie The Place Beyond the Pines, and on an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Perhaps most notably, it also has a Wikipedia page.

We’re lucky to have it. We count Tahou’s among our unofficial city representatives, like Wegmans or Kodak. But, to the dismay of anyone with a 585 phone number, we may not have it for much longer.

Things aren’t so easy for restaurants in Rochester right now. For the better part of 2016 so far, business owners and the city have been at each other’s throats, at odds seemingly every other day.

Just last week, Rochester made national news when the owner of a local diner refused to remove a patriotic banner from her building. The city had allotted her just three weeks a year for hanging signage — a policy the owner (and now millions of others) took issue with.

That’s one tip of one iceberg.

The city also changed its policy on outdoor seating this year. A restaurant used to pay a flat fee of $110 annually for the privilege. Now it must pay $120 for just three tables, and a $40 fee for each additional table.

When asked about the financial toll the city’s policy would take on him, Robert Ament, the owner of Jembetat Gallery and Cafe on Park Avenue (home to many restaurants with outdoor seating), told 13WHAM News it would be “almost as much as my liquor license.” He added, “The mayor is supposed to be promoting businesses and drawing more people to the area.”

Indeed, Mayor Lovely Warren champions the concept of local businesses increasing their presence. But Rochester business owners feel they’ve been manipulated into a sort of revenue-generating bear trap set by the city. “She said she wanted to act as a partner with the Park Avenue area businesses and draw more people down here. Literally, one year later, she sends this huge bill,” Ament said.

The Democrat and Chronicle published an editorial on the frustration of not being able to reach the mayor for comment on similar issues. The editorial’s first line, “She’s Just Not That Into You,” sums up their thoughts on the matter appropriately.

While the outdoor-seating regulation doesn’t affect Tahou’s, another of the city’s (new) policies does: They’ve been ticketed at local festivals for not having visible ID badges.

Alex Tahou and his lawyer are contesting the tickets in court, arguing against their merit. Tahou’s claim is that no other vendors received tickets, despite breaking the same rule.

The city’s argument hinges on the type of vehicle — truck or trailer — that Tahou brought to those festivals. Trucks require additional permits and must adhere to a stricter set of codes than trailers because they have onboard motors. The city began enforcing the policy in early summer of 2016 due to the growing popularity of food trucks in Rochester.

Tahou didn’t buy it, and put the tickets on display in his store for all to see. “This is how the city helps local businesses,” read an accompanying piece of paper. And it’s this “help” that may have Tahou thinking about ditching food festivals altogether. He about confirmed as much:

“If they give me tickets, they give me tickets,” he told Channel 10 news. “This’ll probably be the last festival I do in the City of Rochester.”

News 10’s Berkeley Brean asked him whether he might “talk to City Council and have them change the resolution. Would you do that?”

Tahou doubled down: “At this point, no, because I won’t be doing any more festivals, and I won’t need the permit after this week.”

Tahou is known for employing people whom the rest of the hospitality sector might consider unemployable. Some of those workers could have trouble getting a city ID.

“Who wants to be in the business in this city when this is the way they treat people?” Tahou asked in a separate interview. “I’ve had it. I’m 63 years old; I can retire, and I don’t need to put up with this treatment.”

Residents remain hopeful that the talk of packing his bags is just tough posturing on Tahou’s part. A chess move. But the ticketing of his restaurant is just one of the issues Tahou faces.

Unsurprisingly, a big part of Tahou’s business comes from…well, drunk people. The food is great, regardless of when you order — but there’s something undeniably special about it after a night out on the town. A Garbage Plate is tasty to the inebriated, yes, but it’s also hefty enough to put the liquor in your stomach on the back burner. Digesting it takes everything your body can throw at it. Resistance is futile.

The point here is not to recount the special relationship between drunken adventures and greasy foods, but to note that the food trucks parked outside of every bar downtown — now a staple of Rochester nightlife — may be siphoning off more than a few of Tahou’s regulars.

Considering that alongside some of the other problems he’s faced in recent months, one could forgive Tahou and other restaurant business owners for feeling squeezed.

So, what are the odds those problems will squeeze the mighty Garbage Plate right out of Rochester and straight to greener pastures, maybe even downstate? If Tahou’s words are to be believed, we might as well get New York City residents ready to experience it now.

Pictured: everything in the world that is good, mixed together. [Photograph: Eugene Peretz]

It’s not unlike The Wieners Circle in Chicago, where the unwritten rule is: Know your order, get it over with, and get out of the way. Getting a Plate is muscle memory; Rochesterians at the Tahou’s counter sound like auctioneers. Some of the locals I interviewed for this story actually placed their orders with me, in rehearsed tones that were still as enthusiastic and poetic as the everyman’s rendition of the Big Mac song.

Dalton Howard of Mount Morris, New York, rattled off: “Burg Plate [shorthand for a Cheeseburger Plate with macaroni salad and home fries], ketchup, mustard, meat hot sauce, and Frank’s [hot sauce] by the liter.”

Jeremy Applebee, of Rochester, listed his order: “Cheeseburger Plate, mac, home fry, no onion, extra sauce and mustard. Cherry Pepsi.”

This author orders just as fast: Cheeseburger Plate, mac, home fry, extra everything. Pepsi.

People order this way because the restaurant can handle it. It’s not uncommon to see a member of the staff take 10 orders at once, write nothing down, and proceed to get all 10 orders started. They might even point their finger at you as soon as you walk in the door, your cue to surrender your order immediately. A colleague of mine calls the night cashier “Mr. Memory.”

Whether the City of Rochester continues to shun, penalize, and ignore businesses (and the media), and fails to see the food trucks in front of City Hall as a sign of the times, could be the difference between Tahou staying here or moving his legendary business elsewhere. The same applies to Robert Ament, and all Rochester restaurateurs.

It pains me to say so, but if you’re trying to gauge the likelihood of Tahou’s making its way to, say, NYC — the cards are obviously on the table, and Rochester should have folded.