Liquidation Outlet – Deals on Meals
265 Coxwell Avenue
Lunch for two with beverage and tip – $10 (closed as of publication)

By the time I have digested my grilled-cheese sandwich, this lunch counter will be no more. I had no idea it was about to die. I should have been by its side sooner. I intended to write a review and now I’m writing a eulogy - a eulogy for the last department store lunch counter in Toronto. How I wish this ancient counter could talk. I could record its stories before it perishes - sixty years worth of sad and curious stories from Coxwell and Gerrard.

For me and for many others over a certain age, eating at such a lunch counter evokes sweet memories of their childhood. On Saturdays, my mother and I would take the bus to Woolworth’s. She’d do some shopping, and then we’d eat lunch together at the counter. I can see myself now, clutching Mom’s hand, keenly expecting some shiny trinket and a chocolate milkshake because I was her “sweetness and light”. This idyll lasted all too briefly, shattered one day when my mother was caught shoplifting and dragged away, flailing her limbs and screaming blasphemies. We weren’t allowed back into Woolworth’s after that. But I hold sacred the memory of those visits. And I vowed to my own daughter that one day we’d eat at a lunch counter together.

Near my home on Coxwell Avenue lies the Liquidation Outlet, formerly a Kresge’s department store that contains a lunch counter from the 40s. “Deals on Meals” the sign says. On Saturday, I wandered in with my family and am taken back in time: a long, genuine Formica counter, red vinyl-and-chrome swivel stools, and a clientèle that dates from the 40s as well. There they sit shoulder to shoulder, hemmed in by bins of cut-rate laundry baskets.

I eavesdrop: the talk is of the Maple Leafs, the 649 and chronic back pain. Now here is a place I should have patronized much sooner. For a diner offers more than cheap food, it offers easy companionship as well. Here I could eat grilled cheese sandwiches and exchange good-humoured banter with other grizzled east-enders. These are Torontonians who remember the Boyd Gang, swimming in the Don River, Bill Barilko’s winning goal, and the race riots at Christie Pits.

And I would be on a first name basis with the counter woman. I easily embrace stereotypes and imagine her as a five-and-dime goddess - kind-hearted, hard-working and let down by a string of men. After a hard day of serving easy-over eggs, she goes home to light up a DuMaurier and soak her “aching dogs”. It is she who informs of the counter’s imminent closure when I ask if it really dates from the 40s.

“Yes, I think it’s been around since then. But it’s closing for good today at three o’clock.”

I don’t know what to say. I place an order for a grilled cheese. My wife selects the Western, to be shared with our daughter. The sandwiches can be prepared with either Valupac white or Valupac brown. We both feel cosmopolitan and opt for the brown.

A fellow patron - Steve - tells us he’s come down from Scarborough for the luncheonette’s last day. His mother used to take him here when it was Kresge’s. Steve is a true aficionado of BLTs and fried eggs. We talk about the extinction of the department store lunch counter. As far as he knows, this is last one in Metropolitan Toronto. Health and safety regulations would make them impossible to install, and the classic discount department store is an anachronism anyway, particularly in the big city.

“People who are dirt poor and lonely eat at the donut stores now,” he says sorrowfully.

The food arrives. I bite into the sandwich, trying to retrieve a part of my lost childhood. They are palatable enough. There’s ketchup available and even salt and pepper. This isn’t Susur, obviously. But can you eat in your sweatpants at Susur? And how far can a Canada Pension check go at Susur? Can you buy fifteen coat hangers for a dollar at Susur? And remember, a Woolworth’s lunch counter played crucial role in the battle for American civil rights.

It’s time to go. I have kept my vow to my daughter. The kind lady empties out the cookie tray for her. My wife leaves a generous tip. I shake hands with Steve. “Is that one of those digital cameras?” he asks. He implores me to send him my photos of the doomed counter.

We walk outside into the smell of Coxwell and Gerrard. In the Goodwill, a wedding dress is displayed in the window. It seems vaguely familiar. The Coffee Time donut store is packed. Suddenly, I feel dirt poor and lonely. Then my wife and child hold my hand and I only feel dirt poor. When we get home, I cancel my reservations at Susur.