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In “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” Lucy sends Charlie Brown to find the “biggest” aluminum Christmas tree for their play. He instead buys a twiggy, real tree, and in an odd turn of events, puts real-life aluminum tree manufacturers out of business . Chris and Tom Sardou are owners of Viking Valhalla, a restaurant in Bergen that has just earned a spot on the New York Historic Business Preservation Registry.
Charlie Brown had a point. Why always seek the next fad? The aluminum tree in the Viking Valhalla restaurant – a display of silver tinsel branches and frosted pink ornaments – proves Charlie Brown wrong. The 65-year-old tree is like something out of a vintage magazine, especially because it’s rare to see something so old survive.
The tree is nearly as old as the restaurant, which the Sardou family has owned and operated at 21 Buffalo Road in the small village of Bergen for 70 years. They aren’t the kind of people to throw out the old to welcome the new. The history of Viking Valhalla can be seen in the original stone fireplace that was built by members of the Sardou family and the Viking ship that was created for the restaurant in the 1950s.
They have cooks who have been with them for decades. The lanes in the bowling alley attached to the restaurant are original to the 1950s. Even a huge wooden ship – built for the restaurant in the ‘50s to support its Viking theme – has been cut off and repurposed to make space for more tables.
Now, it juts out of the wall behind the Christmas tree. On a recent afternoon, Tom and Chris Sardou accepted a certificate honoring their restaurant’s new designation as a historic business in the state’s Historic Business Preservation Registry, while standing in front of a stone fireplace built by Tom’s father and uncle in what used to be Tom’s childhood home. He pointed out the parts of the dining room that were once his bedroom and bathroom.
“This beam here used to be a door. This was the living room – very small,” he said to the public officials gathered for the ceremony. Tom Sardou was 1 year old when his parents, Mary and Pierson “Doc” Sardou, moved from Rochester to rural Bergen in 1954.
They took over a roadside diner, the Rose Garden Restaurant, from a couple who had run it for 30 years. They didn’t have much money, but Bergen was far enough away from the city to be affordable. A Viking nutcracker at Viking Valhalla.
The Sardou family lived in a small apartment at the back of the restaurant. In 1957, they added an eight-lane bowling center, Rose Garden Bowl, with glossy, wooden lanes and renovated the restaurant, because, as Tom’s wife Chris Sardou said, “Who goes to eat at a bowling center?” Or at least, who goes to eat filet mignon at a bowling center? With new wood paneling and a charcoal grill, they transformed the diner into a comfortable steakhouse that same year. Inspired by the wood paneling’s brand name, Viking, the Sardous adopted a Viking theme.
They changed the name to Viking Valhalla and commissioned axes and shields from a local forger, and a wooden ship, with a dragon head at the bow, from a local carpenter. Doc Sardou, Tom’s father, died when Tom was 13 years old. Tom was now the “man of the family,” as he was reminded by many people at his father’s wake, and he stepped up to help his mom run the restaurant and bowling alley.
He cooked and fixed bowling lanes while his younger brother, George, washed dishes. “It added a lot of weight to his shoulders,” Chris said. Viking Valhalla owners Chris and Tom Sardou are presented a certificate commemorating their inclusion on the New York Historic Business Preservation Registry by Assemblyman Steve Hawley on Dec.
18, 2024. Chris, who grew up in neighboring Churchville in Monroe County, met Tom on a Saturday night 40 years ago at Viking Valhalla. After they married, she lived with him above the bowling center.
Around 1,200 people live in the village of Bergen. There are three restaurants and two bars – counting both the restaurant and bar separately at Viking Valhalla – and a bakery. The Viking is the longest-running business in the village.
“That’s why I like it here,” said Bergen Mayor Joseph Chimino. “I came from Batavia, and Batavia is way too big for me now. It’s a slower pace of life here and your neighbors know each other.
” Chimino has been going to the Viking for around 50 years to bowl with his family, drink with his friends or eat dinner with his wife. They usually order a fish fry or prime rib, but most recently, his wife had “the lasagna ..
. not that I remember,” Chris said. Every Friday night fish fry at the Viking is a reunion for the village’s residents.
“Try to come here for a fish fry on a Friday night and not stop and talk to 10 people on your way out,” said Cortney Gale, Bergen’s village administrator and clerk/treasurer. “No matter where you sit in here, you’re going to know somebody,” said village board member Todd Cargill. Mary Sardou, Tom’s mother, was 91 when she died in 2019.
Though she was ill toward the end, she came to the restaurant every Friday to chitchat with her customers by the door. She treated her patrons like family and ran the restaurant with a warm – but tough – attitude. No swearing was allowed at the Viking, Gale said, and she enforced decorum by giving customers “that look.
” “There’s a couple of people that I hold in very high veneration in this village, she’s one of them,” Chimino said. “Just someone that you want to be like ..
. I’m sure every village has theirs.” The Viking hasn’t changed much over the years, but there has been some evolution.
A cheeseburger Landfill Plate at Viking Valhalla. The menu has grown to include the region’s most popular dishes – chicken wings, a garbage plate-inspired Landfill Plate” and chicken French. Shower curtains were hung between bowling seats during Covid.
However, the Viking’s charm is mostly in its dependability and respect for the past. Cathy and Fred Hunt, of Churchville, had their first date at the Viking in 1965. They’ve eaten dinner there nearly every Friday since.
The Hunts have a standing weekly reservation for a table near the fireplace. Other than a few decor and lighting changes, Hunt said the restaurant has “pretty much stayed the same” over the years. It “feels like home.
” “As you get older, you kind of like to look back at the good old days,” Hunt said. “It just feels like you’re going back in time sometimes. It’s not changing to the high-falutin, high-price, whatever restaurant that you have to wear a tuxedo to get into.
We’re just comfortable there.” Tom Sardou has spent 70 of his 71 years at the Viking, living either behind or above the business, and always working. Chris has worked at the Viking for the last 40 years outside of her full-time job in Rochester.
“We’ve been running continuously,” Tom said. “Nonstop. Daily.
” None of their family members are interested in taking over the business, but they hope to find another family to continue its legacy. “It’s vital here,” Chimino said. “It’s the only thing around here like it.
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