"It All Started About 40 Thanksgivings Ago": 15 Things You Might Not Know About Alice's Restaurant

The song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the
restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,
that's just the name of the song. The name of the restaurant was Back Room Rest.

Alice Brock only owned the restaurant for a year before she and Ray divorced. The restaurant has remained in operation - it is now known as The Main Street Cafe.

The events Arlo Guthrie describes in the song are true -- at least the part with with Officer Obie and the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction. The story about the Group W bench are uncorroborated... although that doesn't make it any less true.

Officer Obie served the Stockbridge, MA police force for 34 years. It's said in 1985 he was "asked" to retire after hitting another officer after an argument.

William J. Obanhein played himself in the 1969 Alice's Restaurant movie. But despite twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs (with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one), he's instantly recognizable for his modeling work. He posted frequently for Stockbridge's other famous resident: Norman Rockwell. That's Obie in The Runaway.

Mr. Obanhein passed away in 1994. When Newsweek asked about playing himself in the movie he said that making himself look like a fool was preferable to having somebody else make him look like a fool.

Another person who played himself in the movie was Judge James Hannon, the judge who really did preside over Guthrie's case and really is blind.

Alice and Ray do not play themselves in the film but do appear in cameo roles. Alice can be seen in a bright pink blouse in the Thanksgiving dinner scene.

Ray Brock is played by James Broderick (Matthew Broderick's father).

Whitehall Street (where you get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
neglected and selected) could have been better protected. On October 7th, 1969 Sam Melville bombed the induction center, shutting it down.

There are 2622 words in the eighteen and a half minute long song (counting the 47words37sentences58words as one, of course). Guthrie points out that 18 1/2 minutes is also the length of the famous gap in the Nixon tapes.

In 1969 Alice (remember Alice? It's a post about Alice...) published a cookbook. She's known for saying "Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good."

Arlo Guthrie raised the money to buy Alice's church and converted it into the Guthrie Center: a non-denominational meeting place. YouTube has a video of Arlo performing the song at the Guthrie Center in 2005.

In 2004, Alice illustrated a children's book about moose (Arlo wrote it). These days Alice owns an art studio and gallery in nearby Provincetown. She doesn't mind people stopping in and talking about "those days".

The Alice's Restaurant Massacree is probably the only Thanksgiving carol there is. Your local radio station is probably going to play it on Thanksgiving. If you're not anywhere local, where are you? Anyway, if you're not local then iTunes has four different versions and both satellite radio services are playing it throughout the day.