Eugene H. Gosfield, 83, visionary restaurateur

Eugene H. Gosfield, 83, a merry risk-taker who with his wife, Phyllis, helped push the Philadelphia restaurant renaissance beyond Center City, died Monday of cancer. He lived in Fort Washington.

For 21 years, Mr. Gosfield was the mischievous front man at Under the Blue Moon in Chestnut Hill, while Phyllis presided over the kitchen. Their place was dubbed by critic Jim Quinn as "one of Philadelphia's truly great restaurants."

In an interview, Mr. Gosfield once described his job at Under the Blue Moon as "conspiring to give people a good time." His wit and banter with patrons was all part of the Blue Moon experience.

"Gene gave this irreverence and energy to the front. The food was kind of like that, too," Paul Roller, another Chestnut Hill restaurateur, said yesterday. "There were no bounds to Phyllis' cooking and to Gene's humor. There was a lot of love that they projected in that restaurant, for the food and their customers."

To get into the restaurant trade, the Gosfields switched careers after Mr. Gosfield spent many years selling aluminum windows and other products made by the company that Phyllis Gosfield's family owned.

That firm was sold to a Fortune 500 company in the early 1970s, and the Gosfields enrolled in the first class of the Restaurant School.

On May 13, 1976, they opened Under the Blue Moon at the corner of Germantown and Abington Avenue. He was 52, and she was 47.

The Blue Moon was a hit from the start. With its bright peach-and-blue exterior, the restaurant was a lively presence on the quiet avenue.

Along with its fresh and hearty foods, its sesame pecan chicken and seafood Andalouse, the place was also known for Mr. Gosfield's off-key and lyrically uncertain versions of Rodgers and Hart's "Blue Moon," as recorded on the restaurant's phone machine.

The pair operated Under the Blue Moon until 1997. While boutique restaurants exist everywhere now from Collingswood to Manayunk, such places were rare outside of downtown in the early years of the restaurant boom.

"People told us that it was crazy. They were really fearful of us failing," Phyllis Gosfield said yesterday. "We just bulled through. It was really fun to get that place together and to make it just as we wanted. It was so completely absorbing."

Mr. Gosfield was born in New York City and grew up there.

His father had left Ukraine to avoid conscription into the Russian army. The family name was Piatagortzov, but they changed it when they moved to England and lived on Gosfield Street, before coming to America.

During World War II, First Lt. Gosfield served as a bombardier on a B-24, flying 33 sorties out of Italy. He was given a pass on one mission so his pilot could train new crew members; the bomber was blown up and the pilot killed during that flight.

After his discharge, Mr. Gosfield moved to New York, where he frequented jazz clubs - and got to know Phyllis, said by a mutual friend to be a fine blues singer.

The pair had their first meeting at Penn Station during the great snowstorm of 1947. They were married 21/2 years later.

They moved to the Philadelphia area, living for many years in Wyndmoor before moving to Fort Washington.

Besides his wife, Mr. Gosfield is survived by their sons, Reuben and Josh, and their daughters, Avery and Annie.

A service is scheduled at 12:30 p.m today at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks, 6410 N. Broad St., Philadelphia. Burial is to follow at Roosevelt Memorial Park, Trevose.