Remembering the Man Behind Don's Drive-In

It's probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that everyone who lived in the Livingston area between the mid-1950s and mid-1990s fondly remembers Don's Restaurant, originally Don's Drive-In.

It was friendly, affordable and served great food, qualities that reflected the personality and talents of its founder and owner, Donald Roth, who passed away just before Thanksgiving at 83. It is sad to know Roth is gone, but he left thousands of people with many happy memories of a Livingston institution.

For those who don't remember Don's, it was located on the corner of South Orange Avenue and Hobart Gap Road, where Tutor Time Child Care is today. It served hamburgers, deli-style sandwiches, soups, milk shakes, ice cream and other casual American fare, and it featured an on-site bakery and deli.

Its hamburgers, with several variations such as the pizza burger, were the tastiest in the world according to many fans, though every customer seemed to have a second favorite, such as the beef stew, onion rings or chicken salad. Every table was supplied with tangy cole slaw and half-sour pickles, on the house. In its heyday, Don's seated 250 diners and had about 10,000 customers a week, many of them regulars who came for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  There was always a wait at peak times.

Roth himself was almost always there to greet customers, often by name.

"He was great with names and faces," remembers his oldest son, Bob. "He had a wonderful sense of humor and was great at telling jokes."

The restaurant evolved and grew in size over the years to accommodate extra business, but it always had a simple, cheerful décor, with red being the dominant color. In the 1980s, Roth made a quirky and enormously successful design choice, festooning the walls with large black and white photos of customers enjoying Don's food.

"Didn't we all secretly wish our picture was on the wall?" reminisces Jeff Brodman, who was a college student from West Orange at the time.

Roth opened the restaurant in 1954 as Don's Drive-In, with classic Fifties car-hop service as well as an indoor dining room.  A veteran of World War II and a college graduate, he had been looking for a career for a few years. Roth's father was a surgeon at Newark Beth Israel but apparently did not push him to go into medicine, according to Bob Roth. Instead, after trying the business world for a few years, Roth more or less followed in the footsteps of his mother, Grace, who was "a fantastic cook," as her grandson put it.

Most of Livingston was downright rural when Don's opened. Farms stood on the sites of Livingston Mall and most of today's residential neighborhoods. But the location on a major east-west road (this was well before I-280 opened) was a smart choice that paid off increasingly over the years as the area built up. In those early days there were plenty of baby-boom teenagers with cars who gladly became regulars, as well as families with small children who enjoyed the adventure of eating in the back of the family station wagon.

Grace Roth helped her son get the restaurant off the ground with some of her recipes, including beef stew, chili and onion rings. All of those items were "keepers" and stayed on the menu for more than 40 years. Roth came up with his own recipes as well, including the legendary hamburgers, and he invented the pizza burger.

"He was always adding new menu items to keep people interested," recalls Bob Roth. "He copyrighted the pizza burger. I don't know if it matters [legally], but he invented it."

Indeed, a 1967 placemat from Don's proclaims it to be the "Home of the Pizza-Burger."

Roth was a stickler about quality down to the last detail.

Bob Roth, who did a stint at the fry station as a young man, remembers his father buying the biggest onions he could fine because they made the best onion rings, and how "he was always particular about the shortening" used to fry them.

Everything was made on the premises, including the hamburger rolls (after Roth built the bakery). Roth was also very conscious about keeping his prices reasonable.

"He thought long and hard about price increases," recalls Bob Roth. Above all, his son said, Roth "wanted people to leave satisfied. He thought that was the key to success, getting repeat customers."

Roth patiently listened to his customers' complaints and requests, which is probably why Don's was a pioneer of the no-smoking section way back in the late 1970s.

Running a restaurant with such personal investment meant Roth was usually there and worked very hard. His son remembers him saying that in the early days he often slept at the drive-in because there was so much work to be done whether the restaurant was open or closed.

Still, he found time to have a life outside of Don's. His wife, Carol, a native of Livingston, was a waitress there before becoming Mrs. Roth in 1959, and the mother of their six children. The family lived in Morristown before settling in Mendham in 1968.

Roth managed to have another great passion: golf.

"He lived for golf," says Bob Roth, and the restaurant actually accommodated this very well. Roth could be at Don's for the lunch crowd, dash out and play nine holes at Mountain Ridge Country Club, then be back to take down names during the dinner rush. Since his work was busiest when the courses were most crowded, and he was off when everyone else was at work, he had no trouble getting tee times.

Roth also "definitely enjoyed cooking," confirms Bob Roth. Especially in his retirement, he loved cooking for his wife and family. When all six children and their families made a surprise visit to Florida for his 80th birthday, Roth joyfully made breakfast for all of them.

All of the Roth children tried worked at Don's at some point, but none of them shared their father's passion for the restaurant business. Like his father before him, Roth didn't push his children to take over the restaurant, though he had some hope for son Bob, who worked at Don's the longest, for three years.Bob Roth ultimately joined the Navy as a pilot and credits his father for giving him the freedom to do that.

"He worked hard and we [children] all got a good work ethic from his example, but he wanted us to do what we loved."

The one child who came closest to following in Roth's footsteps is daughter Jackie, who is in the deli business in Seattle. So, when Roth was ready to retire in the early 1990s, he sold the restaurant. Unfortunately, according to Bob Roth, the buyers were not experienced in food service, so the restaurant limped to a close a few years later.

It was a sad end to a great restaurant, but then again it just couldn't be Don's without Don Roth there to breathe life into it.

Asked about an Internet rumor that the hamburgers were still sold in a couple of area stores, Bob Roth told Patch, "Not to my knowledge. But I wish I could have one of his cheeseburgers right now."

Amen.