SAUGUS, Mass.----- A 68-foot-high cactus towers over the suburban prairie along Route 1 north of Boston, a commercial badlands of mini-malls, muffler shops and markdown liquor marts. This startlingly garish landmark beckons hungry passers-by to the Hilltop Steak House in Saugus, Mass, America's largest restaurant, both in number of customers served and sales volume.
A half-mile down the road is Kowloon, a zany 1,200-seat Chinese-Polynesian-Thai restaurant that ranks as the fourth - or fifth-largest in gross income among the nations independent oriental eating establishments (industry statistics vary). Kowloon, which like the Hilltop is open year round seven days a week, served more than a million meals last year. The kitchen prepares so much shrimp that it buys supplies directly from China in container shiploads.
Route 1 is the economic artery that feeds this town about eight miles north of Boston. For a mile-long stretch, the highway is a Disneyland of family restaurants; iconographic marvels like the Ship Restaurant, with a life-size red schooner appended to the dining room; the Prince Restaurant, a pizza palace with are reproduction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the parking lot; the giant faux-timbered Continental; and the formidable Kowloon, featuring a grass-hut motif and snarling Polynesian totem poles.
Most patrons are from within a 30-mile radius that embraces other working-class towns like Wakefield, Malden, Revere, and Peabody. Families come to the restaurants seeking economy, not gastronomy, and no place dishes out bargains like the ones at the Hilltop and Kowloon.
One look at the menu underscores the restaurant's straightforward appeal. The most expensive dinner entree is baked stuffed lobster, for $13. Beef entrees range from $6 for shopped sirloin to $12 for filet mignon: the enormous portions are served with salad, potato and bread, and are paid for with cash only.
In 1961, Frank Giuffrida, a butcher from Lawrence, Mass., about 30 miles away, opened the 125-seat Hilltop Steak House. "My family on both sides was in the meat business in Italy, but I always wanted to have a restaurant," Giuffrida said. He added that he spent $7,000 in savings to build the Hilltop in Saugus, "because I counted the cars driving along Route 1 and saw a business opportunity." His credo: Give value, be generous in all ways, and you will succeed.
Six expansions later, Giuffrida is still running the place, though at a less frenetic pace and with the help from his wife, Irene.
Kowloon operates on the same high-volume, low-price philosophy, spiced with some show business. The restaurant serves nearly 10,000 meals a week, not counting banquets in the upstairs Luau Room. Dinner costs $11, on average; lunch, $7; large rum drinks with the requisite tiny paper parasol, $3 to $5. Annual sales topped $6 million last year.
The South Seas leitmotif is reinforced in dining rooms and bars with names like Volcano Bay and Tiki Lagoon. The most dramatic room is Volcano Bay, with its fountain, rock-strewn lagoon and imitation sailboat; a combo plays on deck. A giant mural of a Pacific Island covers one wall.
In 1960, William and Madeline Wong opened the 70-seat Kowloon on the site of another Chinese restaurant, the Mandarin, run by Wong's father. Five expansions later, the place is run by the Wong clan ---- including four sons and two daughters ---- with a staff of more than 100.