Papaya King Priority...

Taking a walk to the Papaya King is ritual that I have performed for many a year, enjoying the Filet Mignon of hot dogs, the Papaya King frankfurter and a blended juice drink of my liking is a celebration of all things American not to mention continuing an age old tradition that started in 1931 on this same corner of Third Avenue and 86th Street. The history of the curbside eatery is quite incredible. A sixteen year old, Gus Paulos, a Greek immigrant, arrived in New York City in 1923 penniless but driven. He started working in a deli on the Upper East Side and within three years bought the deli lock, stock and barrel. With the success of the deli he decided to go on his fist vacation and headed to Florida and the beaches while there he imbibed in the local blended juice drinks and was hooked. He came home with the taste of exotic fruit juices still ripe in his mind. He sold the deli and opened his first juice store, The Hawaii Tropical Drinks, on Third and 86th Street in 1931, but with a store full of perishable fruit and nobody buying his blended drinks he hired a woman to dress up in Hawaiian costume and hand out the drinks for free outside the restaurant. It was a boom. The Upper East Side became addicted to the drinks and the rest is history. Gus opened places in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. In 1939 he did something as natural as smiling by putting the frankfurter on the menu mostly a homage to Yorktown's German population who frequented his restaurant and his wife who nursed him through a broken ankle he got while roller skating. In 1950 after a Brooklyn Dodger christened Gus the Papaya King the restaurant's name was changed. It has been frequented by the rich the famous and tourists from all over the world. The Beatles noshed there before they went on the Ed Sullivan show in 1965 and Zagat reviewed it as "the best, cheapest stand up lunch in the city". As I stood there biting into that perfect frankfurter and sipping on my papaya drink, watching people walk by wishing they were me, I lifted by papaya drink to the heavens and saluted Gus the papaya king ...