This article was originally published in the February 2018 Trenton Downtowner.
The Blue Danube is a Strauss waltz celebrating the mighty Danube River that courses through the European capital cities of Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Bucharest, before draining into the Black Sea.
It is also a restaurant on a quiet corner in South Trenton that became an oasis for Margaret and Peter Pulhac, who as young lovers met at the end of a journey that was as unlikely as it was long.
The restaurant was known as Transylvania back then, in the 1980s. Romantic notions filled the air along with aromas of Sauerbraten. As newlyweds, the Pulhacs decided to buy Transylvania and endure the rigors of operating a restaurant while also starting a family.
The menu of mainly Eastern European cuisine hasn’t changed much over the years — there are still the large portions of modestly priced beef goulash ($17.95), chicken paprikas ($12.95), and schnitzels ($17.95), along with more traditional fare, New York Strip Steak ($21.95). The European cafe-appreciating clientele has hung in there, too, which, given the recent exodus of stand-by restaurants in Trenton, may be the most unusual twist to a story that began in Romania in 1977, when Peter Pulhac and his friend, Costel, had decided they had enough of the autocratic rule of Nicolae Ceausescu, who had been in power since 1965.
“It was very hard to live in Romania,” Pulhac says about growing up in Palazu Mare, a town on the Black Sea coast. “I was working in a mine, copper and gold. I was 19 years old.”
Manual labor was part of his family — he had six brothers and three sisters — and how his father made a living: loading 100-pound bags of concrete mix onto pallets that were then loaded onto waiting ships for export. In a given shift, his father would load bags totaling a ton and a half in weight.
Blue Danube’s menu of mainly Eastern European cuisine hasn’t changed much over the years, and unlike at other Trenton dining mainstays, the clientele has hung in there, too.
A likely if not the easiest route out of the country was by swimming across the Danube. The swift currents of a major river were not the only obstacle. Peter and Costel were by far not the only ones ever to swim for it.
“The Danube, it was easy for me because I’m a very good swimmer,” Pulhac says. “A lot of people when they try to swim the Danube they get run over by the boats. That night we were lucky. It was raining and there weren’t that many boats.”
History was closing in on the old-style authoritarian Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. In little more than 10 years, the Iron Curtain would be a thing of the past. But at that time, Pulhac’s options were limited. The shore that awaited him and Costel was Yugoslavia, not exactly a gleaming beacon of freedom.
“It was the only way to get out of Romania,” Pulhac says. “We wanted to go to Germany. As soon as we got to Yugoslavia, we got to this little town that used to be in Romania until World War II. We spent 15 days in jail, then they took us to Belgrade and we spent another 11 days in jail. Then these soldiers took us into the mountains and we thought they were going to shoot us in the back, but they didn’t.”
The other side of the mountain range was Hungary, where Pulhac and Costel met fellow emigres. They spent another 15 days in quarantine and then made their way to the American embassy in Vienna, Austria.
Pulhac says it was a different time for immigrants then. Yet after pledging allegiance to the United States, including promising to join the U.S. military if called upon, he and Costel next found themselves in upper Manhattan, with their transportation and lodging sponsored by a Romanian-Orthodox church there. Pulhac got a job washing dishes in a diner and lost contact with Costel.
Those in the food and beverage industry usually go where the jobs lead them. Pulhac says that path led from upstate New York, through Connecticut and then south, all the way to the Red Lion Diner near Vincentown, where Routes 206 and 70 converge.
There was another stop, at Mastori’s, the landmark diner located at Routes 206 and 130 in Bordentown. Then Pulhac arrived at Macedonia Restaurant, now the Wisdom Diner, also in Bordentown, where his future wife, Margaret, was working. The daughter of an insurance broker father and homemaker mother, Margaret had grown up in Bordentown and attended St. Anthony’s in Trenton, now Trenton Catholic.
‘We also have very loyal customers. Some of the people who opened the doors with us are still with us.’
They started dating and discovered Transylvania on Adeline Street in Trenton, which specialized, then as now, in cuisine from Peter’s homeland.
“Every Wednesday, that’s where we went,” says Margaret Pulhac. “It was like our little place, and we thought, wouldn’t it be nice if we could purchase it.
“We’re fortunate that it’s not a very large restaurant,” she says. “It’s only 50 seats. We also have very loyal customers. Some of the people who opened the doors with us are still with us. Our food is also very specialized. Where can you go to get Sauerbraten and Weiner Schnitzel? But if you want pasta or chicken parmigiana, we have that or a filet or strip steak.”
They married in December, 1989, and went to the Black Sea for their honeymoon. It was just as the Romanian Revolution was reaching its climax with the capitulation of Ceausescu’s brutal regime. He had been in power since the 1960s, but by Christmas, 1989, he and his wife were on trial for economic sabotage and genocide. They were convicted and died in front of a firing squad on Christmas Day.
Owning the restaurant became a reality the next year. The Pulhacs purchased Transylvania in August, 1990, and reopened that December. The Pulhacs changed the name to reflect the menu, which specializes in food from every country touched by the Danube.
“I think you have an idea,” Margaret, 53, says about the amount of work involved in owning a restaurant. “But you never know how much work it is until it becomes your life. My parents gave us good advice, it’s nice to spend time with your family and everything, but at some point you make your own. That’s what our customers have become, our little family.”
Peter and Margaret still visit Romania, even though his parents and two brothers have died and sisters live in Bucharest, in Germany, and in a town near Palazu Mare.
“The rest are still there,” she says of Peter’s remaining family. “When we get together it’s all a big family.”
They have a family of their own, besides their customers. A son, 26, works for a research company in Yardley and works at the restaurant on weekends, and their daughter, 25, is self-employed as a photographer and works at Blue Danube three days a week.
Margaret recites the milestones of her life. She was married at 25, she and her husband bought the restaurant when she was 26, she had their son when she was 27, and their daughter at 28.
“I was very fortunate as a young person in her 20s being able to have a restaurant,” she says.
“I didn’t bring them up to work in the restaurant or take over the restaurant,” Margaret says of her son and daughter. “I wanted them to have the passion. They both do have the passion. A lot of our family works here.”
During his senior year in high school, the couple’s son did a report on his father. “He found out he didn’t know as much as he thought he did,” Margaret says. “He picked his father because he was always told things. You do the research and all the sudden you find out how he learned how to cook and what kind of person he is.”
“He’s always loved being in the kitchen,” she says of Peter, 58, who is the chef at Blue Danube. “He can cook just about anything, and it’s awesome.”
“When we bought the restaurant there were nine items on the menu. We’ve kept those but added,” he says.
Margaret says she has a number of cousins in the Trenton area who come in to work as bartenders and bus tables every so often.
“They’re still my family,” she says. “We’re really close.”
“We have theme nights,” she says. “On Tuesday it’s Hungarian and Romanian, Wednesday is Seafood Night, Thursday is German and Polish.”
“The future, we’re definitely staying here,” she says. “Our little community here is nice. We love Trenton. I go out two or three times a day and sweep up. I put flowers out there. I’m proud to be here.”
Blue Danube Restaurant, 538 Adeline Street. Tuesday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m., Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m., Sunday, 3 to 9 p.m. 609-393-6133 or bluedanuberestaurant.net.
Margaret and Peter Pulhac, owners of Trenton’s Blue Danube restaurant.,
