Recent change of Alpine Grove ownership triggers fond memories of original owners ‘Big Pete,’ ‘Uncle Danny’ and ‘Peewee’

Susie Retkevicz was barely a middle-schooler when she first went to work in the bustling kitchen of a popular drive-in restaurant situated among a stand of tall pines on the outskirts of town.

With its sliding windows through which patrons ordered their food then picked it up upon hearing their assigned number called over a loudspeaker, the iconic little eatery oozed mid-20th-century Americana, something that was probably lost on 12-year-old Susie Retkevicz.

As the daughter of one of the owners and the niece of the two others, she was pretty much expected to take her place in the family-run operation as soon as she was mature enough to wield sharp kitchen utensils and safely tend the deep fryers, steam tables and gas grills responsible for preparing and cooking the hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, onion rings, fish platters, salmon pie and other classic drive-in fare that kept hungry customers coming back.

Susie Retkevicz, now Suzanne Boyd, a retired Nashua schoolteacher and the “last of the family (members) who remember how hard we worked,” also remembers her paycheck being a little light that first year.

“I was 12 when I started, but I didn’t actually get paid until I turned 13,” Boyd said with a laugh. Her wages? “A whole dollar an hour.”

If, like Boyd, you are a baby boomer who grew up in Greater Nashua, it’s likely you’ll recall the eatery where Boyd spent several of her formative years – Dan’s Drive-In, one of three business ventures that Boyd’s father, Peter “Big Pete” Retkevicz, and her uncles, Al “Peewee” Karawski and Daniel “Danny” Karawski, embarked upon after returning home following their service in World War II.

In her capacity as “the last of the family members” connected to Dan’s Drive-In, Pete’s Bakery, Gate City Caterers and the original version of Alpine Grove, Boyd reached out to me the other day, saying that the essay about Alpine Grove changing hands that appeared in this space on April 2 triggered memories of growing up around Alpine Grove and her father’s and uncles’ other ventures.

One glance at a couple of the photos Boyd shared with me brought me back a few decades, when Pop piled us – and maybe a neighborhood friend lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time – into the station wagon bound for what seemed like the frontier wilderness where southwest Nashua gave way to southeastern Hollis.

Dan’s, which began as take-out only with a handful of picnic tables out back for those who wanted to keep their car seats free of crumbs, spilled drinks and ketchup stains, was just barely over the Nashua-Hollis line near the intersection of Runnells Bridge Road and Depot Road.

Today the building is home to The Nest, a convenience store that was once named The Hatch.

It was during his war service that Pete Retkevicz learned the finer points of cooking, his daughter said. “When his regiment was left without a cook, he volunteered … and the rest is history,” she said.

Boyd’s mom, Julia, “worked just as hard as my father and uncles,” she said, adding that her mom “loved waitressing so much that she went to work for McNulty & Foley and Martha’s” after Dan’s closed.

Throughout her teens, the majority of Boyd’s time was split between school and working at “the stand,” as they called the drive-in.

“On Friday afternoons, my aunt picked me up after school and we’d go to work getting ready for the dinner rush. On Saturdays, I’d go in around 11 a.m. with my mother, and we’d work up until we closed, around 8 p.m.,” Boyd recalled.

But when they arrived at 11, several aunts had already been there for hours, breading onion rings and every piece of chicken by hand.

When it came time to think about college, Boyd said her initial plan was to “go away to college,” with her sights set on becoming a teacher.

But she agreed to stay local, “because my father needed the help,” she said. Fortunately, a quality post-secondary institution – Rivier College, now Rivier University – was a mere 15-20 minutes away.

Pete Retkevicz sold Alpine Grove to Joseph and Patricia Archambault in 1969, during Boyd’s senior year at Rivier.

She still smiles thinking about how close Alpine Grove came to being named “Magnolia Grove,” but “Alpine” – for Boyd’s Uncle Al – prevailed.

While Alpine, Gate City Caterers, Pete’s Bakery and Dan’s Drive-In are now but memories etched into the family timeline, their success remains a source of pride for Boyd.

“I’m so proud of what my parents were able to accomplish without a high school education and (starting out with) just two cents to rub together,” she said.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.