The Blue Moon Restaurant – Rhinebeck

The late 60s were a good time. My friends and I had pretty decent bikes that took us on all sorts of adventures.  One such trip was about a mile or so out of town, to the intersection of NY Route 9 and 9G.  There sat the Blue Moon, a tired and worn restaurant that we’d never actually gone into.  Neither had our parents.  Or nearly anyone else, for that matter.  Those two cars you see out front?  With the grass and weeds growing up around them?  They were there to help lure the unsuspected roadtripper into thinking that the place has business!  And customers!  At this point, it did not.

Since then I’ve learned that the Blue Moon, as with most faded bits along the American roadside, was indeed once a fairly thriving joint, where locals grabbed a coke and a burger.  But by now, it’s best days were behind it.

So we took out bikes up the old country road nearby, so as to avoid the “main road” and associated traffic.  We parked out front and wandered in.  It had a round counter and, as I recall, one guy in his whites tending the place.  Despite the lack of business, he didn’t seem happy to see us.