December 4, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Couldn’t ‘pull the trigger’ on Under the Blue Moon
After 10 years, diners are still making tracks to Trax
by LEN LEAR

Ten years ago, Steve Waxman, now 48, a lifelong Chestnut Hill area resident with 30 years experience in the food and wine industry, was poised to take over the reins at Under the Blue Moon, the legendary 21-year-old Hill restaurant, after its owners, Gene and Phyllis Gosfield, both in their 70s, decided to retire.

“I spent six months putting together a business plan and making all the other preparations to keep the restaurant alive,” said Waxman, who attended Springfield Township High School and lived in Mt. Airy until age 9 and after that in Wyndmoor. “We just couldn’t pull the trigger, though. I finally concluded that with the rent that was being asked and other expenses, we’d have to do $2 million a year in business to make any profit, and there was no way that could happen.” (Ed. Note: The Under the Blue Moon property, once the busiest restaurant in Chestnut Hill, has remained vacant for 10 years.)

Chestnut Hill’s loss turned out to be Ambler’s gain. With the assistance of Ray Maas, former executive director of the Chestnut Hill Business Association (who has also baked amazing chocolate chip cookies for the Ambler restaurant), Waxman signed a 20-year lease in April, 1998, on a building in the Ambler Train Station, 27 W. Butler Pike, which had previously been home to Biddle’s Cafe. After a $250,000, eight-month renovation that included a new kitchen, Waxman opened Trax Cafe, a BYOB, in December, 1998, exactly 10 years ago.

“When we opened,” said Steve, “we still had not received the tables and chairs we ordered, so for a few weeks we had to use picnic benches for people to sit on. My original plan was just to have a coffee and takeout place. Home meal replacements were the big thing at the time, and that’s all I planed to do.

Lifelong Hill area resident Steve Waxman, 48, who tried unsuccessfully to take over the property that housed Under the Blue Moon in Chestnut Hill for 21 years, is now finishing up his 10th year at Trax in the Ambler Train Station. On the left are two of his signature dishes, succulent scallops and red snapper entrees. (Photos by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

“But customers would come in and sit down and want to be served, so eventually I retooled and made it into a full-service restaurant. That was obviously a major change in the business plan, but my basic philosophy stayed the same — to make all soups, salads, dressings, desserts, etc., in-house and use free-range, natural products as much as possible.

“Also to use local vendors and products and fresh ingredients. For example, all of our coffee comes from the Chestnut Hill Coffee Company; all our cheeses come from the Chestnut Hill Cheese Shop, and our breads come from Baker Street in Chestnut Hill. We use Maple Acres Farm in Plymouth Meeting except during the winter, when we have no other choice but to use California produce. This week we got in fresh cauliflower, broccoli, peppers and plum tomatoes. We always have fish specials, and we get our fish from Sunny Seafood on Bethlehem Pike in Ambler and beef from Carl Venezia in Plymouth Meeting. I tell him what I want, and he custom-cuts it.”

As a young adult, Waxman worked in the kitchens of the Fairmount Hotel, William Penn Inn in Gwynedd and the “very upscale” Conti’s Cross Keys Inn in Doylestown, among others. “One great lesson I learned from Walter Conti, owner of the Cross Keys Inn, is the importance of being well organized,” said Steve. “You could find things in his kitchen blindfolded. All stainless steel was polished and oiled every shift, every day, and whenever you reached for something, it was there. I learned that time is everything, and you can’t afford to waste it. Walter preached ‘order,’ and he got it.”

In 1984 Steve went into the business of his father, Myron, who was president and owner of the Superior Wine Company. Nine other relatives also worked in the business. Steve started out at the very bottom, sweeping floors and driving trucks, but he eventually worked his way up to director of sales and marketing, traveling to California three times a year to buy wines.

“I fell in love with the wine business,” he said. “When I started in it, people were still drinking chablis, rosé and burgundy. Many restaurants did not even offer wine by the glass. Today, however, California leads the world in wine. You can experiment with so many good ones for about $10 to $15 a bottle. Everything about it — the history of wineries, how they’ve grown, the romance of wines, how it’s tied into the local cuisine — is interesting. I’d still be in the business if it hadn’t been sold.” (In 1997 the business started by his grandfather, Abe, in 1970 was sold to a much bigger firm, Charmer-Sunbelt.)

Trax can seat 45 people inside and 40 on an outdoor deck, weather permitting. The cozy ambiance is produced by a large ceiling fan, a fireplace, hardwood floors and lots of windows for train watching. For lunch there are soups and salads from $4 to $9, wraps and other sandwiches for about $8; soup and a sandwich together for $10 and full entrees for $10 to $14.

At dinnertime, soups and salads are from $3 to $9; appetizers from $8 to $17, complete entrees from $22 to $32, and desserts from $7 to $8. According to our photographer, Jimmy Pack Jr., the baked French onion soup ($7) was “one of the best I’ve had in a very long time.” The warm sauteed spinach salad with raspberry vinegar and pieces of bacon ($8) was awesome, and the jumbo crab cakes with spicy aioli ($27) were as good as any we’ve had in the area. A signature dish is the smoked baby back ribs over spicy Texas slaw ($16 as an appetizer, $25 as an entree). Our server at a recent dinner, Jason Craveiro, who has been at Trax on and off since the beginning, was excellent.

Steve’s customer base essentially comes from Ambler, Chestnut Hill, Lafayette Hill and Blue Bell. “I would say that during the week they come from a four-to-six-mile radius and on weekends from an eight-to-16-mile radius. I really don’t get much business from the train riders, but when the Ambler Theater (Act II) or the Ambler Movie Theater has a good show, I can feel it.  We get more customers ... Considering what I have had to overcome, I feel confident we will survive for 10 more years.”

Waxman lives in Lafayette Hill with his wife of 21 years, Claire, a dental recruiter; children Brooke, 28, a graduate of Arcadia University in Glenside who is a manager/server at Trax; Jordan, 19, a student at Montgomery County Community College and the “Firefighter of the Year” with the Barren Hill Fire Company in Lafayette Hill; and two formerly stray cats.

According to the Zagat Dining guide, Trax “offers a ‘romantic’ setting with a side of ‘train spotting’ and ‘tasty’ traditional American cooking that’s a ‘nice change of pace from cookie-cutter’ chains.”

For more information or reservations, call 215-591-9777 or visit www.traxcafe.com.