Coney Island Restaurant Landmark, Auctioned

This French Fry cutter was manufactured in Philadelphia around 70 years ago, according to an auctioneer estimate. It was attached to its own table, weighed about 100 pounds, and was used to make crinkle cut French fries. The machine sold for $50; the winning bidder said he’d use it at his restaurant. “I just have to get one of my guys to clean it up,” he said. (Tejal Rao)

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An auction was held yesterday afternoon to liquidate the contents of Gregory & Paul's restaurant, one of the last remaining components that made up Astroland's three-acre space. Gregory & Paul's occupied the corner lot opposite the Cyclone, at Surf Avenue and West 10th Street, and owner Paul Georgoulakos oversaw more than 40 years of warp speed summer seasons catering to hungry beachgoers, selling everything from half-shell clams to cotton candy, funnel cakes to sausages.

And there was 40 years of proof scattered around the back kitchens at the auction: Neon beer signs from brands that no longer existed were sold in lots along with cotton candy machines, battered corned beef boilers, old pizza ovens, soda signs and coffee machines, and an industrial drum potato peeler that looked like a cement mixer. In a compact room attached to the manager's office, a giant combination safe—as big as a walk-in closet—waited for a buyer, and someone to engineer an exit strategy through Gregory & Paul's narrow, galley-like prep area.

Mr. Georgoulakos got his first job (selling milk) at Coney (under the BMT station) when he was 19, and basically stayed on. "The business is the weather," he told the New York Times in 2005. "It's 12 good weekends to make your money, and usually you never catch every one of them." Gregory and Paul's occupied two restaurant spaces around the Astroland perimeter; the iconic rocket ship that loomed over the boardwalk and sat atop Mr. Georgoulakos' other Astroland Eatery was taken down [pictures; video] earlier this month.