Scott checks in with memories of Brookdale soda

"...Hi.
I somehow stumbled across your site - WOW! Blast from the past!
I remember going to exchange the bottles @ Heller & Heller, someplace in Bloomfield, and someplace in Belleville near Newark I think.

When I was really young, I remember they even had a truck that did deliveries. I remember the bottles of soda stacked on the truck. NEAT to see the pictures.

If you're interested, Franklin Farms has an old Brookdale Soda Clock inside the store. Round, yellow and blue I think, and it still works! If you see him open, stop in and check out the time!

I think it's been there for 30 years and the guy who used to run the place was a distributor or a delivery guy - not sure, but there's a story there.

Its funny what you remember out of the blue sometimes. So many of my birthday parties as a kid had Brookdale sodas involved - for some reason I remember the lime - so bright green - and the fruit punch the most. They even had the plastic bottle tops to put on the bottle after it was opened. Kind of a translucent plastic I think. (I wonder if my parents have any at home?) If I come across any other Brookdale stuff, I'll keep you posted!

Thanks for running that blog! I put a link to it from the home page for now. I thought it would be neat for visitors to see other Belleville-related things too. Especially things that are no more.

Scott ... "

Edited from two separate emails from the same writer.

Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

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Bobby Cole on Brookdale Soda

Brookdale Soda...The Best I've ever tasted

Growing up in Newark New Jersey in the 60's and 70's, I was exposed to the best food and drink you could ever imagine. I knew it too, and I can look back now and realize now how magical of an era it was in America's history. I could spend weeks and weeks talking about the different foods and beverages the inner cities of the Northeast had at their fingertips but for this post, I will discuss the greatest soda I have ever tasted.
Continue reading

Thanks to Retrobobby for

Going Going Gone
A time it was...It was a time

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Brookdale Mixers Stash Discovered

What's a Tom Collins, anyway?

Our friend Bob told us about these cases of Brookdale soda bottles he had in his garage. And although he wouldn't part with them, he allowed us to visit with our camera.






Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Click on photos for close-up view.

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UPDATE: August 2015 ... The owner of this collection passed along the two crates of bottles to Anthony Buccino. 

Dog Park Named After Our Favorite Soda

We must have known it would come to this. Now, that there's this incredible revival of Brookdale soda and all things related, the county of Essex in New Jersey has not only named a county park after our soda ... but a million-dolllar dog park, as well.
Brookdale Dog Park is not without its controversy.

The dog park has been a little secret for years, but recently the county spent a lot of tax dollars to improve the area with fenced in security and special gravel, yada, yada, yada.

Now that the area has been improved, the folks who live in the neighborhood complain about barking dogs and people parking and walking down their street to the dog park.

You might say, aw, it's just those uppity people who live in Upper Montclair who complain.

It proves the adage, no good deed goes unpunished. Meanwhile, dog owners tip their hats to Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo for doing something.

After all, something is something that hasn't been tried before in Brookdale Park.

Read about the Dog Fight on Baristanet.

Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

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We Get Email

POST SCRIPT - We get a random email every so often from some transplanted Brookdale Soda drinker who wants to know if the beverage is still available. WE welcome your emails. In fact, someone offered us two cases of empties whether or not there's a deposit available.

The last time this story - Memories of Brookdale Soda - was published, in 1996, for the second time in The Independent Press of Bloomfield, the soda pop distributor had been shuttered for several years. Brookdale was also the name of a neighborhood bordering Bloomfield and Clifton.

The site of the Brookdale soda depot at the Allwood Circle in Clifton is now a car parts store. The depot site on No. Sixth Street in Newark has been abandoned. In fact, you can see the back of the building from the Newark City Subway. The Home Liquors and Heller/Heller stores don't carry it either.

The Sinisi depot on Montgomery Street in Bloomfield has no sodas. And lastly, the Brookdale soda depot in Bloomfield near High Street and East Passaic Avenue has been converted to housing.

Anyway, 28 years ago, who would have conceived of a world without Brookdale Soda?

-- (July 16, 2004)

A Kid Gets A Job @ Brookdale Soda

Sixteen years old and looking for work, something to supplement caddying at the Country Club which was only a good thing on week-ends in fair weather. What could be handier than the soda pop factory two blocks up the street from my house? So came about my three year association with Brookdale Beverage of Bloomfield, New Jersey.

They needed extra help afternoons when the trucks returned from their routes. Unload the empties and pile on the new product so the trucks would be ready to roll bright and early the next morning.

Continue Reading Tom Garcia's Remembrance

Uncle Owned Brookdale Soda Co.

My uncle Joe owned Brookdale. My father Angelo built the company as its general manager. My brother Anthony made the soda in the lab. I worked there when I was 11 at the store behind my uncle’s house in Bloomfield on Sylvan Way where the original plant was. The worked at the cash and carry store in Clifton down the street from the plant (now a Home Depot). I worked a few summers with my brother in the lab making the soda. I share many of the same memories of Brookdale soda growing up as well. Don’t forget the coco cream! Let me know if you want more words, I have a few to offer. Thank you for bringing back the memories.

Thomas A. L.