"The Chimes Restaurant"

     Travel west on East Ridgewood Avenue after crossing the juncture of Route 17, past the medical facility on the right, and, as the Paramus Women's Club comes into view, make a right turn onto Chimes Road, and as one crosses the stone "bridge," stare straight ahead and cross West Glen Avenue. You are approximately on the footprint of one Bergen County's premiere classy restaurant, The Chimes. I ate there once with my grandparents in the late 50's (maybe it was the early 60's?), and I distinctly remember the elegant, cloth-covered chairs. Perhaps you have a memory as well. Please share.
    "The Chimes in Paramus: Ray Wells remembers The Chimes very well – he and his wife, Betty, raised their six children in a house across the street. The Chimes was an upscale restaurant with a huge property that hosted many wedding receptions. “A number of their best dishes were prepared right at your table,” Wells recalls. “They had a duck specialty that was very good – flambéed with cherries.” Wells’ son, Thomas, remembers going to eat at The Chimes with his family “and ordering my favorite meal in any restaurant – a roast turkey dinner.”
     
        " When I was 11 years old, I had a newspaper route and delivered The Record to the bar at The Chimes,” Tom Wells says. “In those days, a big tip was 50 cents, and I was allowed to come into the bar and sometimes they’d give me a Coke.” He especially remembers the restaurant’s owner, Pete Peterson, “who, for a kid, was an interesting guy because he had a patch over his eye.” Ray Wells recalls the bitterly cold night when the popular restaurant was leveled in a fire that destroyed the old wood mansion that housed the restaurant, which was originally owned by the Geering family. After the fire, The Chimes reopened as a smaller restaurant on the site of what is now McDonald’s on Route 17 North."