Ben's Lunchroom closing will leave city a little smaller

It doesn’t seem like it, but almost a decade has gone by since the Coffee Oasis in Newcastle was turned into a parking lot. I don’t mean the diner that used to operate on the square a couple of years ago, I mean the one in the old fire hall on George Street, the one my old pals and I now call the old Oasis.
For me and the circle of friends I had at the time, the old Oasis was a second home. During the summer of ’97, my crowd was a fixture there on the couch near the back wall. One of us would usually show up in the morning to lay claim to the couch and through the day our little group would gather. Over coffee, iced tea and some of the finest turkey sandwiches ever to grace this river’s mighty shores, we pored over newspapers, poured our hearts out over our trials and tribulations and grumbled long into the night about being young and poor.
In one corner, someone would be playing a guitar; in another, a fierce game of chess would be in full swing and in yet another, a couple would be playing the game of love.
Many songs were sung, wars waged and hearts broken that summer. Most of those broken hearts were the kind that only last a few days. But some heartbreaks would never leave us – like the day someone’s mom called to tell us our friend Jeremiah Frank had died in a car accident only days after his high school graduation. Most of us had seen him only two days before. Some of us sat on that couch in a daze saying nothing; some of us sat and cried openly; but we all sat inside those four walls together.
Now the spot where the old Oasis stood is a parking lot, that circle of friends is scattered to the far ends of the Earth and my hometown will never be quite the same to me.
A couple of years ago, one of the old group was back in town for a weekend and we found ourselves standing in the empty parking lot, trying to find the spot where our couch was. It was hard not to feel a little sad.
The old Oasis was open for barely three years on that spot, but it was there for us during some of the most important times in our young lives.
Now, Ben’s Lunchroom on the corner of Duke Street and University Avenue in Chatham is closing down. It has served generation after generation of Miramichiers since the 1930s. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney and future prime minister Frank McKenna have bellied up to the lunch counter inside the little red-and-white building famous for its hotdogs and hamburgers. I have no doubt there are countless stories that can be told about the goings-on inside those four walls. Nor do I doubt that more than a few tears will be shed when those who loved the place the most stand in an empty parking lot one night and try to remember the smells of frying food or the way their laughter rang off the walls of the little room. If they’re anything like me, their world will be just a little smaller.