Monday holidays are great. With the exception of Christmas and New Years, if a holiday falls on a Monday, I am usually off. Thanksgiving, always on a Thursday, so we take turns. The past few years, Turkey day has been my major holiday off and I absolutely love it! This holiday is all about family and it gives us a chance to catch up with the kids and our Florida family, which we do not see, nearly enough!
Sadly we do not see our Fred's News family either, although we do hear from them! Just the other day, one of the "former family" announced that the little Fred's News building is again for sale, such a pity. Neighborhood restaurants are a dying breed, most overtaken by "the chains". The small family owned restaurant, sadly, is something today's young people may never know. Somehow it doesn't sound the same when someone says, "what a crowd at Dunkin Donuts this morning, boy they make the best bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel." Couple things here we might make note of: although the place has fantastic coffee and the sandwich is pretty decent, they are also busy most of the time, is it done with "LOVE"? Can you get the sandwich over easy with a standard five pieces of bacon? Is it made with farm fresh eggs, that were perhaps delivered that very morning? I think not mon ami (remnants of my visit to Paris)! For the naysayers, I am not complaining nor boasting, just stating the facts. Why did we leave? It was time but the fact remains, the small family owned restaurant, that in most places was "the Town meeting place" ( I did not coin that phrase either) IS for the most part, facing extinction. Why? Tough question but then why not? Society for the most part has become, "a throw-away society". We bore easy, much like attention deficit disorder, new and exciting places are not only needed, but required. Gossip spreads like wildfire via social networking. If you thought it got bigger everytime it was repeated in Fred's News, just log into Facebook! So, maybe that type of social gathering place is no longer needed.
We have search for a local place in our new neighborhood. Even in Polk County, Florida's oldest county, the landscape is dotted with chains. Our community has a restaurant where one can visit and meet old(since this is an over fifty-five community, I do mean old) friends daily, but you will never have someone stop by on a whim or because the place looked inviting. Perhaps it is the flowers, or quaint benches and carved bears that beckoned. Could it have been the array of antique cars that occasionally lined the front walk-way, or the streams of people coming after Sunday morning services, or the groups of young teens congregating on the sidewalks waiting for ALL their friends to arrive, that invited the passerby to stop and sit awhile. Whatever the reason, that way of life is slowly disappearing.
A former patron once said to me "we understand, everyone deserves to retire, but we had so hoped our children's first place of employment, would have been Fred's News!" Thinking back, most of the young people we employed, started their working years at the little place. We still laugh at Eric buttering an uncooked english muffin THEN placing it in the toaster. That one moment in time began the years of "toaster torture" for those hard working little appliances. Perhaps the beautiful new curtains that framed the famous Paris Window will forever be remembered by the milkshake cup regurgitating its entire contents of chocolate ice cream, fudge syrup and milk onto their crisp flowing ruffles, as it spun, precariously hooked wrong, on the blender! That made for an interesting story of why and how it happened. Less we forget the young man that insisted he had properly sprayed the waffle iron before he had loaded it with batter! Then of course, the same person was responsible for not tightening the tops of the syrup containers. Interesting to say the least! At extremely busy times two automatic dishwashers operated at the same time, one in front and one in the back. For the most part I saw EVERYTHING that was happening every moment of the day. Somehow the person squirting dishwashing liquid instead of automatic dishmachine soap into the dishwasher, escaped my notice. It wasn't until a patron said "I see something coming out underneath the door to the back room, looks like soap!" that panic set in. For the record, it was probably the cleanest the back room ever was, no one ever admitted the guilt, but everyone had to take bucket loads of suds out to the back dock. It took at least a half dozen more cycles to completely rid the machine of bubbles.
My spiel to all "you are allowed one mistake, do not repeat it!" For the most part, all learned and there was a sadness as each left. Not only did they grow from their Freds News experience, we did as well and we thank each and everyone of them for their laughter and tears, their unique personalities and the wealth of memories they gave us, but mostly we thank them for the wonderful memories and their friendship!
Sadly we do not see our Fred's News family either, although we do hear from them! Just the other day, one of the "former family" announced that the little Fred's News building is again for sale, such a pity. Neighborhood restaurants are a dying breed, most overtaken by "the chains". The small family owned restaurant, sadly, is something today's young people may never know. Somehow it doesn't sound the same when someone says, "what a crowd at Dunkin Donuts this morning, boy they make the best bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel." Couple things here we might make note of: although the place has fantastic coffee and the sandwich is pretty decent, they are also busy most of the time, is it done with "LOVE"? Can you get the sandwich over easy with a standard five pieces of bacon? Is it made with farm fresh eggs, that were perhaps delivered that very morning? I think not mon ami (remnants of my visit to Paris)! For the naysayers, I am not complaining nor boasting, just stating the facts. Why did we leave? It was time but the fact remains, the small family owned restaurant, that in most places was "the Town meeting place" ( I did not coin that phrase either) IS for the most part, facing extinction. Why? Tough question but then why not? Society for the most part has become, "a throw-away society". We bore easy, much like attention deficit disorder, new and exciting places are not only needed, but required. Gossip spreads like wildfire via social networking. If you thought it got bigger everytime it was repeated in Fred's News, just log into Facebook! So, maybe that type of social gathering place is no longer needed.
We have search for a local place in our new neighborhood. Even in Polk County, Florida's oldest county, the landscape is dotted with chains. Our community has a restaurant where one can visit and meet old(since this is an over fifty-five community, I do mean old) friends daily, but you will never have someone stop by on a whim or because the place looked inviting. Perhaps it is the flowers, or quaint benches and carved bears that beckoned. Could it have been the array of antique cars that occasionally lined the front walk-way, or the streams of people coming after Sunday morning services, or the groups of young teens congregating on the sidewalks waiting for ALL their friends to arrive, that invited the passerby to stop and sit awhile. Whatever the reason, that way of life is slowly disappearing.
A former patron once said to me "we understand, everyone deserves to retire, but we had so hoped our children's first place of employment, would have been Fred's News!" Thinking back, most of the young people we employed, started their working years at the little place. We still laugh at Eric buttering an uncooked english muffin THEN placing it in the toaster. That one moment in time began the years of "toaster torture" for those hard working little appliances. Perhaps the beautiful new curtains that framed the famous Paris Window will forever be remembered by the milkshake cup regurgitating its entire contents of chocolate ice cream, fudge syrup and milk onto their crisp flowing ruffles, as it spun, precariously hooked wrong, on the blender! That made for an interesting story of why and how it happened. Less we forget the young man that insisted he had properly sprayed the waffle iron before he had loaded it with batter! Then of course, the same person was responsible for not tightening the tops of the syrup containers. Interesting to say the least! At extremely busy times two automatic dishwashers operated at the same time, one in front and one in the back. For the most part I saw EVERYTHING that was happening every moment of the day. Somehow the person squirting dishwashing liquid instead of automatic dishmachine soap into the dishwasher, escaped my notice. It wasn't until a patron said "I see something coming out underneath the door to the back room, looks like soap!" that panic set in. For the record, it was probably the cleanest the back room ever was, no one ever admitted the guilt, but everyone had to take bucket loads of suds out to the back dock. It took at least a half dozen more cycles to completely rid the machine of bubbles.
My spiel to all "you are allowed one mistake, do not repeat it!" For the most part, all learned and there was a sadness as each left. Not only did they grow from their Freds News experience, we did as well and we thank each and everyone of them for their laughter and tears, their unique personalities and the wealth of memories they gave us, but mostly we thank them for the wonderful memories and their friendship!
No comments:
Post a Comment