MY Town: A "family" restaurant
Feb 1, 02:14 AM
It’s 6:30 p.m. Deanna Myron stands outside My Town Restaurant, backlit by the blue and pink neon “OPEN” sign, lighting a halved cigarette.
“We’re a family in [My Town]. These people come together like you would not believe,” she said.
Inside, Myron’s friend Bobby Douglas sits at a corner booth sipping a bottle of beer. He runs his hands back and forth along the rough surface of the wood table as he professes his love of “old school” photography.
His favorite subjects were horses. Then one day he came home to find someone had stolen his camera, his dark room equipment, and several rectangular blue cookie tins filled with all the moments he had captured. Douglas says he’ll get another camera and take more pictures someday. In the meantime, he catches up with other old friends at My Town Restaurant — just like he’s done almost every day for the last nine years.
“You need a couple of bucks until your check comes in, you can always get a few off somebody,” Douglas said. Tommy, who has owned the diner for about 16 years, says he cooks a mean souvlaki. A customer at the bar adds the western is another favorite. The restaurateur also talks up “Tommy’s Special”, a mixture of ground beef and secret spices.
“People like it — you know what I mean?” It’s dinner time, but nobody in the room is eating. And as a cascade of voices heckle the eastern European as he stands behind the cream-coloured counter lined with cushy stools and hanging plants, it’s clear the patrons at My Town Restaurant come for much more than the food.
posted by: Michael Lehan
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Michael Lehan is a media journalist based in Toronto, Canada