Under new management — corrected

FuzzKetchup

This afternoon, in a move sure to flabbergast longtime French fry fans in Sydney, a worker at Fuzzy’s Fries offered a patron a plastic packet of ketchup.

FuzzKetch-closeCivilization, as we know it, may be in peril.

Former owner Don “Fuzzy” Bacich, who founded the landmark chip wagon at The Esplanade and Townsend St. 40 years ago,* offered a selection of salt, pepper, and vinegar, but had no truck with ketchup.

He knew his proud creations owed their universal acclaim to the golden simplicity of their potatoey goodness. A little salt? Certainly. Some vinegar? Sure. But to slather his chips with the garish, tomato-based condiment was to to debase them.

So vehemently did Bacich hove to this creed, legend had him berating customers who dared even inquire as to the availability of the red stuff. Fairly or unfairly, this habit won Bacich a sobriquet based on the fictional owner of a Manhattan soup shop regularly featured on a longrunning New York-based sitcom.

But time marches on, and another bastion of quality and tradition falters.

* [CORRECTION] Contrarian reader Weldon Boone writes to say Bacich acquired the chip stand from a Montrealer named John Landmeyer, who founded the operation in 1959. At the time, Boone worked with the late Jack Colombus at CHER, which aired Fuzzy’s Fries commercials. [Thanks to Contrarian reader John MacNeil for supplying Mr. Landmeyer’s last name.]