Traveler Food and Books - \u201CLunch with Baldwin, with a Book by King\u201D

by Tom Soboleski / Photos by Jeffery Lilly

Imagine savoring your bacon and eggs in a casual family style eatery beside Bill Murray. Or your tuna cheddar melt next to Alec Baldwin. Or relishing a Godfather Burger with Stephen King. These are just a few of the celebrities who occasionally pop in to Traveler Food and Books in Union, in Connecticut’s Quiet Corner. And besides them, you get to take home a book - or three - for free.

Traveler is a one-of-akind restaurant. It has the feel and layout that reminds you of a library,

Photo by Tom Soboleski without the stuffiness. It’s a friendly atmosphere, and anyone who has a meal is entitled to three free books; yours to keep. Lining the walls are framed portraits of numerous authors who have visited and left signed handwritten notes. Many are the giants

of storytelling; Stephen King, Alex Haley, Dr. Seuss, Robert Ludlum, Isaac Asimov, Mary Higgins Clark, and many others.

“We easily give away 100,000 books a year,” said Karen Murdock, who together with her husband, Art, own and operate Traveler Food and Books.

The novelty goes back to the early ‘80s when the previous owner, Marty Doyle, began bringing in books “because his house was overrun with them,” Karen said. “He was just a real big reader. He just left them lying around, and customers started to take them, and it kind of branched out from there.”

As the idea took off, Doyle began to drive around the state scrounging through flea markets, yard sales, and library sales. Karen and

Art began working at the restaurant in the late ‘80s, and soon started going on book runs with him. When Doyle began thinking of retiring, he let Art and Karen run the place for a time to decide if they liked the business. After a year, they took the plunge and bought it. That was 26 years ago. “So here we are. It’s worked out well,” Karen said.

The menu of Traveler is as unique as the establishment. Art said they try to present a large

variety to appeal to the diversity of the traveling public. You can have a Charles Dickens Wrap with your James Michener epic, or a Booklover’s Burger with your John Updike saga. Start your day with a John Grisham thriller and a Novel Omelet (3 eggs, apples, and Vermont cheddar), or end it with asparagus French fries and a juicy Jackie Collins. There’s pizza on Fridays and Saturdays and full dinners like grilled salmon or bourbon marinated steak tips.

Dining areas are both spacious and cozy, with tables for two to eight arranged in little nooks and different rooms. Bookcases, shelves, and lamps give it a library-like feeling. But it’s all very informal, with diners encouraged to browse around for titles. Just the book you’re looking for may be on a shelf above a table of four, encouraging a chat amongst book lovers. It’s part of the charm that Karen has worked to establish. “Everybody gets to move around, and the customers get to talk to each other.”

“We have an interesting clientele, it’s very diversified,” Karen said. Some stop 4-5 times a year while traveling the highway (I-84) - even a lot of Stephen King’s neighbors stop in. And the locals - “a real big cross section and a lot of generations. People who brought their

kids, and now their kids are bringing their kids.”

On a Saturday in February, Patricia Carucci stopped for lunch on her way to Boston from her home in upstate New York. It’s one of her favorite road stops. “The quaintness about it” really appeals to her. “This is like an old soda shop,” she said. “You have the old tables and everything. You have the wood paneling. I send so many people here. It’s wonderful. There should be other places like this.”

The easy hop off and on I-84 makes Traveler a

Photos by Tom Soboleski

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convenient meeting place. Richard and Liz Hart of New Hampshire were here to reacquaint with old friends from New York. They come for both the food and the books and “have taken a number over the years,” Richard said. Their original visit was more than 30 years ago when they lived in Illinois and were driving through Connecticut.

Celebrities popping in are fairly common. Most “like to be incognito,” Karen said. But not Susan Sarandon, who was in last year and took a photo with the diner at the next table. That was posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Robert Redford stopped in last summer and tried to keep a low profile. “He didn’t identify

himself,” Karen said, “but I’m pretty sure it was him. We were talking about horses actually, which was kind of funny.”

Books cover all genres from fiction to non-fiction, mysteries to histories, mainly in hardcover, by authors from obscure locals to national best sellers by John Grisham, Elmore Leonard, Irving Wallace, and Danielle Steel. There’s a bookcase full of children’s books. For the ever-hot romance market, bushel bags of

paperbacks sell like hotcakes for $10. Bags of mysteries are $15. Audio books and a small selection of DVDs are also available.

To keep up with a pace that sees a few thousand books a week fly off the shelves, Karen and Art now make upwards of 50 or more collecting trips a year, towing a 16-foot horse trailer with their pickup. Their main sources are libraries and Friends of the Library group book sales. “It’s gotten to where they look for us,” Karen said. “At certain times of the year - like September is a big month for book sales - we can go to three a week.” Typically they will take whatever is left over at the end of the day, when the library just wants to get rid of them. In return, Art and Karen make a donation to the organization running the sale.

Customers also bring in books to donate every day.The Murdocks sort through them, trying to stay current with popular authors and titles, but also keeping an eye out for oddities like a medical dictionary from 1940. Encyclopedias, magazines, and outdated textbooks are refused, but “other than that, we pretty much take everything.”

The lower level features row after row of used books for sale, all categorically sorted. Included are 10 volumes of the complete works of Robert Louis Stevenson, a 25 volume

set by William Thackeray, guides to Lionel model trains, a wine tour of France, and Shelby Foote’s Civil War.

In these times when multi-tasking with high tech devices is second nature, perhaps Karen and Art’s most valuable contribution is providing the opportunity to escape our digital madness, if only for an hour or two. Getting lost in engaging stories while eating comforting food in a neighborly ambiance, you can make new friends and refresh your mind.

Traveler Food and Books is just a stone’s throw off exit 74 from I-84 in Union, right next door to Sturbridge, MA. They’re open seven days a week from breakfast through dinner.