Pedrin’s Dairy Bar

Seasonal stands are a common sight across Massachusetts, where locals young and old wait eagerly for their favorite spot to signal the arrival of warm weather and regional favorites – typically fried seafood or hot dogs and ice cream. North Adams has claimed Pedrin’s Dairy Bar as its own makeshift summer groundhog since 1963, when the Deeb family took over from the Pedrins and created the core items the stand is known for throughout the Berkshires. This former train station reliably opens each spring, bringing hot dogs, hamburgers, and soft serve to Curran Highway, and closes in the fall when the birds that congregate for stray fries have flown south and it is too cold to huddle around the benches out back and wait for your name to be called. 

The sign advertising Pedrin’s above the building claims it as the “home of the fish fry,” and while that term is in use throughout the country, the particular definition at Pedrin’s seems to have originated across the New York border in Albany, where Ted’s Fish Fry, to name maybe the earliest example, has built a mini empire around it. Here in Massachusetts, haddock is cut thin, with a circumference at its widest point about the size of a sausage, and stretches to over a foot. Despite this unwieldy length, it’s placed on a standard-issue hot dog bun (a traditional hinge bun, by the way, not the split-top more common in New England seafood shacks – though they use those for the hot dogs), which leaves each end poking out well beyond the paper tray tasked with containing it. You can get this fish fry with sauce on the side, though as to which sauce it’s up to you. The fish is battered with a light crust that is nevertheless sufficiently crunchy, with good flavor and salt, and there is undeniable pleasure in picking off the ends as you make your way towards the sandwiched portion of the filet. 

Three sides stand out as additional claims to Pedrin’s significance in the seasonal game. Their onion rings are a medium cut, laced with ragged, crisp batter and piled high. They look suspiciously pale in today’s Instagram race to well-done but the first bite will settle your nerves: these are top-tier specimens. The fried mushrooms are proudly advertised next to the rings and they help solidify the stand’s rep for frying things well. Finally, there is a cole slaw, it has a secret recipe, and if it is not as noteworthy as its fried counterparts it is well balanced between salt and sugar and vinegar, and makes for a nice chaser for the richness of the others.

Pedrin’s serves other things, too, like a classic split-top hot dog, an adorable cheeseburger, and a fried chicken sandwich which is a chicken nugget in a puck shape and can be topped with white American cheese and tomato sauce for a strangely satisfying distant cousin of chicken parmigiana. Ice cream, both soft and hard, and in the form of a freeze or milkshake, can be had once your meal is finished. They stick a pickle slice on top of anything that comes on a hamburger bun, speared through with a toothpick to hold these manageably sized sandwiches together as you transport your red dinner tray, filled with food and lined with a placemat sporting local ads, back to your picnic table. So much of the charm of these stands comes from the unmistakable feeling that you are getting exactly what has been served there for decades. It’s a confidence that comes not only from the customers who have reliably returned every year to confirm it, but from the perfect simplicity of the food, unmarred by social media or temporal trends. Each March Pedrin’s emerges just as it was, a time capsule designed to build memories that can be handed off to the next generation of Berkshires fish fry aficionados. ■

About Pedrin’s Dairy Bar

If the Deeb family name sounds familiar to anyone from the Albany area, it’s because the Ted of Ted’s Fish Fry is Ted Deeb. While there is no clear origin of the Capitol Region fish fry, most people agree it originated in the same way most fish fries in America did: Catholic immigrants who would not eat meat on Fridays. This might make it the only food that has a recipe based on what day you eat it. The fish fry is a tradition in the midwest, southeast, and other parts of upstate New York, and even central Massachusetts has restaurants that serve fish and chips only on Friday. But only in Albany did the specific long thin breaded specimen emerge, cradled by a hot dog bun and slathered with “sweet chili” sauce or tartar. Most sources don’t trace the origin back further than Ted, who started his first shop in 1949.

Though there’s no connection between the two businesses anywhere online, we do know Gordon Deeb came to the Berkshires from Troy, NY. It’s almost certain they were related and quite possible they were brothers. Either way, Gordon brought the idea for the fish fry over the border – if anyone has more information on this please reach out!

Pedrin’s itself was opened around 1950 by Julio Pedrin, who operated it as a hot dog stand converted from its original train station purpose. There was a driving range and miniature golf course owned by the Pedrin family attached, but it was separated when the Deebs bought the restaurant and later closed. Gordon lived into the 1990s and his wife Amy continued to own the stand until her own death.

Their daughter Peggy made the decision to tear down most of the original structure in the late 2000s and rebuilt it with a modernized interior that looked identical to the original from the outside. Ironically, while the “dairy bar” part of the name had been included from the beginning, it was only after this update that the shop began to serve a variety of hard and soft ice cream. Peggy ran it until her death in 2020, and the family continues to work there into the third generation. ■

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