Like I have a piece of dad’: New Haven rib shack owner gets customer a memento of her late father
NEW HAVEN — When ordering ribs or brisket it’s not usual to get a side of bricks.
But that’s exactly what one regular customer got, albeit a few days after visiting Ricky D’s Rib Shack.
“She was ecstatic,” said Ricky Evans, the restaurant’s owner.
These aren’t just any old bricks — they came from the last building at the site of the old Winchester Repeating Arms factory, undergoing demolition to make way for apartments, at 270 Mansfield St., across from the eatery.
The bricks have special meaning for Lynn Bernadini. They remind her of her father, Raymond Sorman, who worked at the firearms factory from 1948 to 1967 as a hand checker, marking gun stocks by carving the wood to enhance the grip.
Before coming into Ricky D’s last week, Bernadini saw a pile of bricks in the back of a section of the building where she knew her father had worked. She knew she wanted one of the bricks but the site was closed off to the couple.
After their meal, she and her husband, Thomas, got to talking with Evans. They told him about her connection to the factory and how she really wanted to get a brick as a family keepsake. He told her the workers frequent his restaurant.
Evans said he told her he wanted to help since those workers frequent his restaurant. He got the opportunity two days later when a construction worker who was part of the demolition crew came in to schedule an order.
“I told him the story,” Evans said. “You don’t happen to have any bricks laying around over there? I would love to contact her and give her a brick just as a memory of her father.”
When the worker came back to pick up his food, he brought two bricks with him.
But Evans had no way of contacting the couple, who are Oxford residents, as they were walk-ins and he had no phone number.
He took to Facebook and Instagram, saying, “Social media, I need your help” and posted the couple’s photo he had taken at the restaurant and another of an old brick from Winchester.
“It kind of just went semi-viral a little bit,” Evans said. “I guess it just resonated with people.”
He was relying on the customers seeing his appeal.
“I didn’t know the next time they were going to be back,” he said. “I just wanted to see if social media can kind of help track down the customer.”
Within two days, Bernadini responded and Evans gave her the bricks on Monday.
“I couldn’t believe it when he said, ‘I got a present for you,’” Bernadini said.
Evans said he was amazed at the reach of his post and that people were following the story.
“We’re out there taking pictures in front of the restaurant, just basically showing that she got the brick and then a lady walking down the street was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, you got your brick,’” he recalled.
Bernadini said she is happy to have a physical reminder of her dad, who was born in 1901 and that she will be able to leave one for each of her two sons, Michael and Steve.
“Right now it’s next to my computer, where I sit most of the day,” she said. “So it’s like, OK, this is cool, it’s like I have a piece of dad.”
Growing up, the factory was a big part of her family’s life drawing a comment from her mother whenever they drove by.
“My mother would always say, ‘That’s where Dad works, right in that window, in that window right there,’” she said, adding they could see it lit up at night from the street.
Bernadini also got a job at the factory in international market research sometime after her father died in 1979 and was able to visit the area where he worked.
Years later she went back to school for nursing and ended up in Neonatal Intensive Care at Danbury Hospital.
Bernadini said she looks forward to coming back to the rib shack where her go-to is the brisket and beans.
Ricky D’s Rib Shack is known for ribs and brisket, bathed in barbecue sauce that Evans calls “Kansa-Lina,” which he describes as “a combination between that sweet and savory taste of Kansas City barbecue and vinegar style, but a Carolina.”
Evans said he is looking forward to when the new apartments are completed and more people are living in the area.
“It’s definitely a good addition to the neighborhood,” he said.