Readers know that it’s not unheard of for me to sing the praises of some long-forgotten (by most anyway) defunct fast-food restaurant I have known, or present day greasy spoon. A reference to fried clams from the Northumberland Strait at Chez Camille’s in Cap Pelé, New Brunswick made it into the very first Latitude 55 column I wrote for the Thompson Citizen on July 25, 2007.
I got thinking about defunct fast-food restaurants I have known earlier this year when I stumbled on a webpage called “Share Your Memories – Oshawa’s Municipal Heritage Committee” at: http://www.heritageoshawa.ca/share_your_memories.php#post, which is dedicated to “Keeping Oshawa’s Heritage Alive.”. The page has apparently existed since Friday, Dec. 22, 2006, so I guess stumbled is the right word to describe me landing on it some seven and a bit years later.
What I noticed is how many of the contributors talked about bygone Oshawa restaurants and their fond food memories of yesteryear. On Dec. 22, 2010 – coincidentally four years to the day after “Share Your Memories” went up online – I wrote a Soundings column in the Thompson Citizen headlined, “Red Barn, Big Barney and the Barnbuster,” extolling the culinary wonders of the Red Barn, a fast-food restaurant chain founded in 1962 in Springfield, Ohio by Don Six, Jim Kirst and Martin Levine. Red Barn peaked in its heyday in the early 1970s with more than 400 restaurant locations in 22 states, as well as locations in Canada, and even a dozen in and around Melbourne, Australia.
On Feb. 20, 2013, I wrote a column ostensibly about my two university roommates, but also in part about driving a Plymouth Duster to deliver for Mother’s Pizza Simcoe North for $2.65 per hour – plus tips. Mother’s was an iconic Canadian pizza parlour chain from the 1970s – with its swinging parlour-style doors, Tiffany lamps, antique-style chairs, red-and-white checked gingham tablecloths, black-and-white short silent movies shown on a screen for patrons waiting for their meal to enjoy, root beer floats and pizzas served on silver-coloured metal pedestal stands.
I’m happy to say that in 2008, Brian Alger acquired the then-expired trademark to Mother’s Pizza – one of his favourite childhood brands – and along with another entrepreneur, Geeve Sandhu, re-opened April 1, 2013 at 701 Queenston Rd. in Hamilton, Ont. Mother’s Pizza was founded in 1970 by three partners, Grey Sisson, Ken Fowler and Pasquale Marra, and got its start in the Westdale Village area of Steeltown. The chain eventually grew to about 120 locations in Canada, the United States and England.
“I have fond memories of downtown too with the lunch counters at Karn Drugs and Kresge’s. You could get a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk without it being enough food for two meals and costing $12,” Andrew McCarnan wrote on Oshawa’s “Share Your Memories” webpage on March 27, 2011.
That must have trigged thoughts of food among the site’s readers because a few days later on April 1, 2011, a poster known as doraryan@cogeco.ca wrote, “I was born and grew up in Oshawa. One of my memories as a child was going to the Oshawa Bakery after church on Sundays to get their warm rye bread. Does anyone know if their rye bread recipe is still in use and can you still get their bread?”
Clearly, food, especially not particularly fancy fast-food, resonates for us working stiffs from Canada’s Motor City. The closer I looked, the more I realized many, if not most commenters, had at some point mentioned a bygone restaurant or food favourite in their posting. Vince Robichaud on Sept. 29, 2012 wrote, “I don’t know if anybody remembers Mike’s French fry truck that drove around selling fries. The truck was a 1948 Dodge Fargo. The best fries in town, back in the 60s.”
In keeping with the spirit of the thing, my own comment Feb. 3 reads, “Pepi’s Pizza, eh? Simcoe and John streets. I had a friend who worked there circa 1973-74. I still have fond memories of the pepperoni pizza … greasy, yes, sure. But superb also.”
Pepi’s Pizza restaurant locations in Oshawa were owned by the Firmi family. Brothers Lewis and Ron Firmi opened the doors of Pepi’s Pizza, still famous for its handmade dough, at the corner of Water and Weber streets in Kitchener in 1962.
The Record, Kitchener’s daily newspaper, reported on Dec. 20, 2014 (https://www.therecord.com/shopping-story/5216482-history-of-pepi-s-pizza-kitchener/): “Most people expected the restaurant to fail soon after it opened. They thought the brothers were crazy, that pizza would never catch on. The brothers were determined to prove people wrong and to encourage customers to give it a try. They offered incredible specials, such as all you can eat pizza on Friday nights for a dollar.
Rhonda Firmi, the daughter of one of Pepi’s founders, and her husband John Guy, have been operating the remaining three Kitchener Pepi’s Pizza locations for more than a decade.
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