Swiss Onion Pie

Sometime in the late 1930s George Frederick Zoller and his wife, Frieda, traveled from Cleveland, where they’d settled in 1916 on arriving in the United States from Switzerland, to vacation in the emerging boomtown of Sarasota, Florida. Once there they found their way to the Sarasota Tourist Park, a virtual city within a city with its own volunteer fire department, a 2,000-seat auditorium complete with a sprawling dance floor, a commissary, and even its own police officer to direct traffic around the 70-acre campground.

The Zollers were smitten with Sarasota, so much so that by 1939 they had made it their new home. George, a chef by trade, had long dreamed of opening his own restaurant, and soon he and Frieda set about planning to open a place that would evoke the charming and distinctive inns of Switzerland. One day they found the perfect location for their new restaurant at the corner of South Tamiami Trail and U.S. 41.

The Zollers’ Swiss Chalet debuted on June 1, 1941, with George in charge of the kitchen and Frieda overseeing the front of the house. The main dining room was paneled in cypress, with rough-hewn beams spanning the ceiling and a massive stone fireplace with a piece of gold ore that George Zoller had embedded in it. The Swiss ambiance was further highlighted by the alpine wood carvings decorating the walls, acorn-shaped cowbells hanging from the rafters, white linen napkins neatly arranged on red-and-blue-checkered tablecloths, and the huge hand-carved wooden bear greeting diners as they entered the restaurant.

Newspaper ads for the Swiss Chalet promised “real home-cooked food in cool, comfortable, home-like surroundings,” and the Zollers went out of their way to deliver just that. The “Business Men’s Lunch,” offered daily, included spare ribs and sauerkraut, spaghetti with meatballs, a variety of cold dishes and salads, and ice cream pie made on the premises. Sunday dinners were expansive, featuring such choices as chicken giblets with mushrooms (60 cents); breaded veal cutlets, grilled pork chops with applesauce, veal tenderloin with mushrooms, and grilled ham steak with sweet potatoes (75 cents); or a T-bone steak with mushroom sauce ($1.00).

By 1946, however, the Zollers were apparently ready to sell. A large display ad in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune read:

Just Offered
SARASOTA’S FAMOUS SWISS CHALET, Known from Coast to Coast
Have you Imagination??? Have you vision???
THEN CREATE RIGHT HERE A SWISS VILLAGE!!
and thereby add to our beautiful City’s many genuine attractions!!!
Almost an acre of land where you can build a number of little Swiss Cottages.
You have here a beautifully landscaped piece of land right on TAMIAMI TRAIL
with a Papaya Grove, Citrus Trees and unusual shrubbery.
Asking Price, $30,000—Open to offer.
POSSESSION IN 30 DAYS.
The Swiss Chalet is a going concern doing a seasonal gross
of between $5,000 and $7,000 monthly.

But the Zollers, not finding a buyer, kept things at the Swiss Chalet humming along just as they always had. A reporter for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune painted the scene inside the restaurant this way in 1947: “At the Swiss Chalet you may eat, chat, laugh, even ring the cow bells, and over all presides the serene and kindly presence of Mrs. Zoller, happy only if her guests enjoy themselves. Mr. Zoller, who has been a chef practically all his life, cooks the food for which this restaurant is famous.”

That same year the Zollers’ real-estate agent, William Kennelly, hosted Robert Ripley, the world-famous creator of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!,” who’d docked his colorful Chinese junk, Mon Lei, at Sarasota’s municipal pier, and treated him to a whole Swiss Onion Pie from the Swiss Chalet to be eaten aboard the 19th-century vessel.

In 1953 George Zoller died at age 66. His obituary noted that Zoller, a naturalized U.S. citizen, had been born in Adrianople (known today as Edirne), Turkey, but became a citizen of Switzerland and served in the Swiss Army before coming to the United States.

Three years later, in 1956, Frieda Zoller once again put the Swiss Chalet up for sale. Advertisements for the property touted breathlessly highlighted its 15-year history, touting the restaurant’s prime location for any business (“Surpasses Anything Recently Available”) and detailing such features as the owner’s second-floor apartment and four rental cottages—everything except for Zoller’s personal furniture and effects. But despite what were described as “Unbelievably Liberal Terms,” still there were no takers.

Frieda carried on until 1959, when she closed the Swiss Chalet and put its fixtures and equipment up for sale. She died in Sarasota in 1987 at age 87.

The Swiss Chalet was razed in 1962, and after that the site hosted various businesses, including a beauty salon, construction company, physician’s offices, and, most recently, a Chase Bank branch office, which has occupied the location since 2015.

Print Recipe

Swiss Onion Pie

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This simple Swiss Onion Pie was featured on the menu of the Swiss Chalet from the day George and Frieda Zoller opened the restaurant in 1941. And when Robert Ripley, the world-famous creator of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!,” sailed to Sarasota in 1947 aboard the 19th-century Chinese junk he'd acquired the previous year, his hosts gave him an entire pie from the restaurant to be served aboard the vessel on his last night in the city.

Ingredients

• 4 large onions, chopped into small pieces
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 large eggs
• Salt, to taste
• Paprika, to taste
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell

Instructions

1

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2

In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the chopped onions and sauté until softened but not browned, about 5-7 minutes.

3

Spread the onions evenly over the bottom of the pie shell.

4

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, salt, paprika, and milk until smooth. Pour the mixture over the onions in the pie shell.

5

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the pie is golden brown and the filling is set.

6

Allow the pie to cool slightly before slicing. Serve warm as a main course or in smaller pieces as an appetizer.

Notes

Although the Swiss Chalet's recipe for Swiss Onion Pie didn't call for blind-baking the pie shell before adding the filling, doing so is probably a good idea to help the crust stay firm and make sure that the finished pie doesn't end up soggy.