Abstract
Tommy Fello, owner of Tommy's in Coventry, discusses growing up in Cleveland Heights and starting his drug store/restaurant. Fello discusses the supportive community in Coventry, the history of the neighborhood, and his move to solely selling food at the Tommy's that exists today.
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Interviewee
Fello, Tommy (interviewee)
Interviewer
Fearing, Heidi (interviewer)
Project
Cleveland Heights
Date
4-11-2012
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
108 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Tommy Fello Interview, 11 April 2012" (2012). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 911073.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/678
Transcript
Tommy Fello [00:00:00] I'm gonna write one more name down on there. If I could borrow your pen again. I just remembered someone I forgot. But I don't have his number. But I'll put him next to Mark because Mark will know his number.
Heidi Fearing [00:00:11] Okay.
Tommy Fello [00:00:11] You might have already talked to some of these people, so.
Heidi Fearing [00:00:14] I don't think so. I recognize the Fitzpatrick.
Tommy Fello [00:00:18] Oh, George? Okay.
Heidi Fearing [00:00:19] I recognize his name.
Tommy Fello [00:00:21] Yeah.
Heidi Fearing [00:00:21] But there probably is a lot of.
Tommy Fello [00:00:24] He's a really. Right now, he's a really. A famous artist. Good.
Heidi Fearing [00:00:29] Oh, yeah, yeah.
Tommy Fello [00:00:31] He has shows in New York and all over the place. Yeah. But he. He used to run the theater up the street when. That's how I met him.
Heidi Fearing [00:00:39] Is his name on it?
Tommy Fello [00:00:41] The movie theater?
Heidi Fearing [00:00:42] Yeah.
Tommy Fello [00:00:42] No, no, he was just a manager there. Yeah.
Heidi Fearing [00:00:48] I wonder why I. Maybe I'm making it up. It could be a different.
Tommy Fello [00:00:53] Well, it's a pretty common name, I think. Yeah. Yeah, these guys will give you some rich history about the street. I mean, big time.
Heidi Fearing [00:01:09] If you'd like to tell me about them.
Tommy Fello [00:01:11] Already, now. Yep.
Heidi Fearing [00:01:12] And I was trying to get the sound levels right, so.
Tommy Fello [00:01:15] All right. Let me know when you're ready.
Heidi Fearing [00:01:17] I'm ready now. Whenever you are.
Tommy Fello [00:01:18] Okay. I put Pee Wee down first. Everyone- He is affectionately known on the street as Pee Wee, but his real name is Marvin Rosenberg. And to tell you how far he goes back is that my brother and I bought our first bicycle from him when we were little. And Pee Wee, I think, is now in his late eighties, but he's still around on the street. He doesn't have his bike shop anymore, but he can tell you all about the different changes that are on Coventry also from where he had his different bike shops. He had one on Mayfield Road for a while, and then he had a couple spots on Coventry. And then right before he retired, he put one on Lee Road, right by Superior on Lee. But he's a good person to talk to. Ellie Strong, whose name used to be Ellie Hauserman, used to run Coventry Books, which is in the spot where Tommy's restaurant is now. So when I was up the street where the Inn on Coventry is, that's where her first store was. She had opened Coventry Books down the street. Her and her two partners ran Coventry Books for the longest time. And unfortunately, as many bookstores did, they went out of business, unfortunately. And now she's in the bookbinding business. But she has a lot of. She. As a matter of fact, she organized the Coventry get together, reunion, this last summer, where some of the people came to it. John Richmond, who is presently a very talented musician, used to be one of the managers at the movie theater, but he has some insight on what was going on. George Fitzpatrick is a good friend of mine who was a manager of the theater when it was actually was an X-rated theater back then. And to tell you that what it was is that our store? Do you know where Inn on Coventry is now? Well, that was our store. It was a little drugstore with a soda fountain. And the movie theater, they made all their money off a X-rated 3D movie. It was one of the first ones around and on. Unfortunately, the lines were past our store. But you'd go in there, you get these little glasses. It was called the Stewardesses. And the people that ran that theater were out of Arizona. And they made all their money off of that one movie. And then nothing else ever happened. So eventually they sold it and it eventually got closed down. But for the longest time, George worked there as a manager, a very talented artist. And then he opened a bookstore in the front of one of the stores on the street called Cargo, which was really. It was like a mom and pop version of Pier One before Pier One was a glimmer in anybody's eye, but it was a top notch, beautiful store. And in the front window, George opened a little book shop in there. And then all the time he was doing his artwork. And he's had shows in New York and all over the place. Very, very well known. He always says that I'm going to. When I die, I'll be really well known. But for now, he's a really nice guy, really talented artist. F. David Gill. Some of these people that are down here were members of the Coventry Neighbors back in the seventies. I just remember someone else's name, too. And F. David was one of the officers and the Coventry Neighbors back when the street fairs were going on back in the seventies. And he can give you some. Some insight on stuff. Bruce Hennes, who presently still works in the Heights here. And he was a president, past president of Coventry Neighbors, and really had a lot to do with the organizing of the first couple of street fairs, which were back in the seventies. Now, Manny Dishler is the owner of Heights Laundromat, which is across the street from Winking Lizard. Now, when I was a kid, when I was 14 years old, working at the drugstore where the Inn on Coventry is, because that used to be a drugstore with a soda fountain - that's how I got my start. Our whole lunch crowd for lunch was from his place of business. I think he had 30 or 40 employees at that time. And they would come over for lunch, and we would sell them toasted cheese sandwiches. And nothing like we have now. It was just little heat and eat things that we had egg salad sandwiches, stuff like that. And we always had great milkshakes. So they'd come over and get a bottle of Pepsi or something to take out or a salad. But Manny would probably have an awful lot to tell you about the street and how he saw the street back then, because it was a lot different. Back in those days there was a lot of Jewish delicatessens, or Jewish, like, egg and fish stores. And then there was two delicatessens, Leo's and Irv's. And then there was no other restaurants on the street, except for we had a soda fountain counter. And there was antique stores. Lots of those. There was about five or six beauty shops, like, for, you know, when the people would come and they put the little thing on their head. The women, like, in their forties or fifties, would get their hair done? There was, like, a few of those. There was a furrier, and there was an upholstery place. There was actually some wholesalers. One wholesaler was called Hazeley Waller. And they sold- Like, if you had a school, you represented a school, you'd come buy your auditorium furniture from them. And then there's another wholesaler down the street called Bicart Drugs. And our little drugstore would buy our toys and school supplies from him to mark up to sell. So that was all that was down here. And it wasn't until Bill Jones, which is another name under here, started making handmade sandals in the basement of an antique store, right about where- It would be in the block where the new BD Mongolian. And I can't remember the other place up the stairs, but McNulty's. But that was a different building then, because that building burned down. But before it burned down, there's antique stores. And in the basement all night, Bill Jones would be making these handmade sandals. So the word got out that you could come to Coventry. This guy will trace your feet, make your sandals for you. And they're really cool. So all the hippies and everyone loved it, so they would come down, they'd flock from everywhere. So he started the first, really startup on Coventry, I think I firmly believe. And as a 15, 16 year old kid, I was really impressed with how hard he worked. And I really admired him, because he would come out of that basement after working all night, his eyes were, like, bugged out from working. And he made- He turned out the most beautiful sandals. Later on, he did boots and leather jackets and stuff. But when he first started, he was strictly doing those craft-made sandals that people came from all over. And Coventry got on the map. Another reason Coventry got on the map was because there was a bar on the street called C-Saw, where a few Hell's Angels hung out. Well, on our menu, you see, there's a Beetle Omelet. Well, the Beetle Omelet happened to be a guy that was the treasurer for the northeast Ohio chapter of the Hell's Angels. But he worked at the Leather Shop after they started getting employees. When they first started, Bill did it all by himself. But as he got a little bigger and the name came around, he needed help, people to help him. Well, Beetle was one of the people that helped him, along with Brian and other people. And they would come and have coffee at the restaurant, even though it was just a drugstore with a soda fountain. And they'd come in, have coffee and chit chat and stuff. But Beetle, to me, was a really nice guy. He, as a matter of fact, when I got my first motorcycle, he taught me how to tune it up, how to drive it, so I wouldn't get killed. Really nice guy. But I guess when he wasn't at work and wasn't being a nice guy, maybe he wasn't so nice working with the Hell's Angels. But everyone seemed to think, well, there's all these Hell's Angels down there. You gotta be careful and stuff. And it really wasn't like that. When the Hell's Angels came down, they came down to visit Beetle. And there was some trouble. They did have some trouble with them, I'm not going to lie to you about it, but the majority of the time, they were just hanging around visiting Beetle. And then when he was done with work, they took off and went on their own merry way. So Bill Jones was really the start of Coventry. I feel strongly about that. And he opened a dress store later on. And he helped Cargo, which was that Pier One mom and pop-type store. He helped Larry Lockhart get that started. And they just took off. People started coming up. Wow, look at all these cool shops that are down there. But it was all in Bill's head. He had all imagined how nice this would be. As a matter of fact, on April Fool's, this year would be his, if he was still open, would be his 46th year. That he would have been on the street doing the Leather Shop. Right now, he's still making sandals and- He's still making purses, I should say. And another fella that used to have a shop. Mike Defina. I'm going to write this name down, too, because you might want to talk to Mike Defina, who has a store in Ashtabula. Well, Mike Defina had New World Haircuts, and I'll have to get you the name of his store. Well, Mike was doing haircuts for a long time. He was above where CD Game Exchange is now. He was down the street where Pacific East is for a while. And I should write down Lee Goldstein, too. I keep thinking of these things. Sorry.
Heidi Fearing [00:10:57] Actually, that reminded me that I needed to turn off my ringer, so it works perfectly.
Tommy Fello [00:11:02] Okay. Lee Goldstein. I'll get you his number, but this is a more recent story. So Mike Defina was in the restaurant, and he used to have the haircut place, and now he does antique store, and he has a place in Ashtabula. It's sort of a cool little place. And he said, come out and visit us, Tom. So we drove out one day, and it's right by the lake. It's really a pretty spot. And it looks like Coventry, a neat little strip, but there's hardly any stores that are open. It's really depressed. But it was like a- All the ships would come into the port. And back in the old days, there was like a bar and a brothel and all this stuff. Well, the store next to him, as a matter of fact, was a brothel. And you go and it has all these cool, like, gifts and stuff, but you look up, there's a railing where all the ladies would hang over, and people would pick out who they want to go with. There was rooms upstairs and stuff. And Mike's place that he has now was an old hardware store with his sliding ladders and stuff that would go to the different shelves that were too high. Well, I go into Mike's shop, and I smell this. I'm saying, boy, that smells like leather. And I go back in a little corner, and there's Bill Jones. He has all his purses and stuff. I had not known that he was there. His stuff was there. And I said to Michael, I said, Bill's still selling his stuff now? Because I didn't know what had happened to him. He says, yeah, bill's living in Peninsula now. He does this for me here. And he has a neat little saying. Now, when you enter that little area, it says, because he sells all purses now. He says, why go coach when you can go first class? Because you know Coach purses and stuff. So it's really a cool little thing. And Bill was here this summer for the- David's his real name. But Bill was here for the Coventry Reunion, and it was great to see him, but he's doing great, and so he'll have some good stories for you. Then I wrote down Mark Siegel. Mark presently is our produce man. He sells- The reason why we have such good produce is he goes. When I first started, I used to go down to the market myself. I was open six days a week, from seven in the morning until midnight every single day. I worked the whole shift all those days, from seven in the morning till midnight. And on Sundays, we were closed. And I'd either play baseball or do something. But where I would go down early before that to the market to get a little bit of vegetables we'd use, I would use, like, maybe a case of lettuce would last me, like, a week. And one little block of American cheese, because that's all we had at that point when we first started, would last me about a week because we didn't have- We only had seven seats, you know, seven stools at the counter. So Mark became our produce man as we grew. And because I couldn't get the time to go down to the market, so Mark had a little- Him and another buddy, Tom Reaney, opened a produce company where they supply produce to restaurants and stuff. And he's still our person after probably 38 years now, I've been with him. But he also was key because he was down on the street back then. He lived in the neighborhood, and he also worked at Dobama and the bowling alley. There was a bowling alley on the street. And I'm pretty sure that either him or someone else of his friends used to set the pins because it wasn't automatic. You would roll the ball down, and whatever pins got knocked down, someone had to set them up because there wasn't automation back then, so. And then he helped the Dobama, which was in the basement. The Dobama's on Lee Road now, but they were in the basement below Winking Lizard back then. Before Winking Lizard, it was- Back then it was Turkey Ridge, and before that was Leo's Delicatessen. But he helped finish remodeling, so it would look like Dobama. So he can tell you some stories about that, about how that got started, because it was all pretty much volunteers. The nice part about Coventry, when everything had to get done, if you didn't have enough people, whether it was the street fair or building the school playground, everyone volunteered. Everyone got done. We usually ended up feeding them. And then other people ended up with the hammer and the nails and stuff, or when I burned down one time, the neighborhood came and helped me get things because I didn't have insurance, enough insurance. So they came and helped me rebuild. Alex Bevin came and was playing songs, had a little concert while people were working. It was like no one asked anybody to do anything. They just did it, because that's what Coventry is all about. It's all about helping each other out. And that's why we nicknamed it. As a matter of fact, Bill Jones nicknamed it Coventry Village. Because when you talk to him, you see he has sort of like a little British accent. And I think the village sort of ties it into a quaint, little connected community. And I really still- It's still that way today, I feel. Alan Rapoport, he was another president of Coventry neighbors. You'll have to get his number, though, from Mark Siegel. I forgot to look it up. But he also helped with the street fairs when they first were going on. Chuck Miller is a member of the historical society, Cleveland Heights Historical Society, and I think the Cleveland Historical Society. So he can really get you some great pictures and probably has a lot of detail and factual things that he can get for you about the whole district. Michael Montlack. Now, the Montlack family- There was two families that owned almost all of Coventry, the Ross family. And then there was- The William Ross family. And then there was the Montlack family. I can't remember what his dad was named, but both William Ross passed away, passed it down to his kids. And then Michael and Ken's dad passed away and passed it to his kids. Right now, the Montlacks own about 40% of the street, and he knows the neighborhood backwards and forwards since when he was a little kid. So because he grew up in the area, he'll be able to give you some great, great memories about what the street was like and where also he'd like to see it go because he's very much involved in the special improvement district, trying to get things done. So Michael would be an excellent person to talk to. The only thing- Can we not tape for a second? Be prepared. [recording was paused and resumed] But he'll have some great stories for you. His brother Ken is a councilman for Cleveland Heights now. So that's the connection there. But Michael and Ken own a fair amount of property, all in this whole area, apartments and everything. Chuck Owen was president of Coventry Neighbors for a long time. When we had a development corporation, CVDC, instead of right before. That was the first thing before the Coventry Village special improvement district. He was president of that as well, donated countless hours to the street. But he has some terrific stories for you about the neighborhood and stuff. He can help you with that. Lee Goldstein is presently the owner of Laura Lee. He's been on the street almost as long as I have. I think probably. I bet she's been on the street for 38 years. I betcha. I've been on for 40. Manny's probably been down there a little bit longer than me, Manny from the Heights cleaners. But Lee will be able to give some stories about where he was and stuff because he was at that end of the street a lot and he was upstairs a few times. And now he's on the main street. But he'll be able to give you some great insight as to what's been happening, what was happening on the street. But that's all the names that I gave you here. Those are some people I think can really give you some good information for your project.
Heidi Fearing [00:18:43] Thank you so much. And actually, I might. Some of the stories you told about them might be useful.
Tommy Fello [00:18:50] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They'll have more. Bruce will have a whole bunch of- Some of them might have even pictures for you from the old days because- You know Kara from the city, right? Well, she's got some pictures too. But some of these other people might have some pictures for you where, like, it's neat looking at the block that I'm in now. Back in the old days, I remember when I was a kid. I went to St. Ann's for school and then after, after church sometimes we come down because there was Newmarks Bakery and there was another bakery. We'd love to get a bakery down here, but so far no luck. There's Newmark Bakeries which made these delicious donuts. They were so heavy and so good that they just- They weighed a pound. If you ate one it just felt like you. You just ate a brick. But they were so good going down. You know how when something tastes real good you just eat it real fast when you're a kid? These things were so delicious. And they were always so busy after church because everyone go down there to get stuff. And there was another donut place called Sid and Dave's, which was next to pick and pay, which was where Pick and Pay was, right where Marc's is now. And Sid and Dave's was a little donut shop. And most of the time the people from Heights Laundry, because it was right next door to the Heights Laundry, would go in there and get coffee and stuff from them and get donuts. And sometimes they come over for us for lunch and stuff. But Sid and Dave were there for a long time. They closed down when they built Lot 15, which is the parking lot between there. That's where their building was. So that was. That was a poultry place, a poultry and egg place, and also Partytime Donuts. So that was there for a while. So we lost a lot of the stores over the years, but we replaced them with really sort of more retail, less service-oriented, less wholesale stuff like the furniture and the reupholstery places, which was really good for the other businesses. It was good to have the hardware store and all those other places. But it was great to have other people. Like what's happened down at the other end of the street now at the north end, all the clothing places, because it brings people down. Like, people say, aren't you mad that in the old days there was only three restaurants and now there's 14 places to eat? I said, not really. I think it's great for everybody because as long as you have enough parking, people are coming down. If they think, let's go get something to eat. They're thinking of Coventry. And as long as you're coming to the area, they're going to hit on you once in a while. And that's the mainstay of what we really believe in. But, yeah, things have changed over the years as far as back in the seventies, which I think what your project's about, how the street's changed over the years. Is that what your project's about? About how things were and how things are now?
Heidi Fearing [00:21:33] I haven't really developed an angle yet. I've only done one site so far.
Tommy Fello [00:21:37] Okay. Well, back in those days, when I was just a kid working at the drugstore, it was pretty interesting that there was a lot of oh, I would say older people. Ethnic, really ethnic, Jewish, Russian Jews. And people were catering to that sort of clientele. That's where all the egg stores and the fish stores and the poultry market and the kosher chicken market was back. I don't know. Steve told you about that. Back behind where Panini's is now, up in front, it was ABC Construction. You'd go there if you want to get something built. And sometimes there was rumors that it was sort of mafia stuff back in the late sixties, early seventies. But if you wanted to get something done, they would contract them to do it. And behind them was the poultry store. For as long as I could ever remember. I remember sneaking out of St. Anne's parking lot and going down. We'd watched them butchering the chickens or eating lunch, believe it or not, it was really gross. Now, I can't even imagine doing that because it was really gross and it really smelled. So we would go down there and the rabbi would be doing whatever he does, the proper procedure to get it done. And we'd come back with, because Mitchell's candies was on the street. So our job, when we snuck out, when the nuns didn't see us sneaking out of the schoolyard, we had everybody's money to go get leaf bubblegum from Mitchell's candies. And, oh, we'd come back with candy. We would be divvying it out. That was our business transaction even back when we were in 7th grade. But in the meantime, we'd take time out to take a second to let's go check out the chickens, what's going on over there? And believe me, gross. But so that's how the street changed. And then once Bill Jones came along, the whole flair and the whole ambiance of the street changed because more and more youth were coming. They happened to be hippies at that time. But more and more youth came into the area where, let's go get those sandals. Oh, my God, you got leather jackets, too? Oh, my God. Frye boots were big then, especially for motorcycle people because they were the best with the heels. And you'd hook your thing on 'em, your heel to the [inaudible] would go. But all the dress stores and there was Ironworks and there was Cargo and Dress Me and all these other places that started popping up. And I'll tell you, just more and more people kept coming down and helped my business thrive, really, because really they are looking for something different. The guy- I learned, what I learned to do because I went through three different owners. The last person I worked with was a Lebanese fellow, and we were present- We always had great milkshakes. I'm still making shakes the same way I did back when I was 14 years old with the same ice cream. And it's a different dairy now because Dean Dairy used to be on the street, too. Their trucks, right where the garage was, was the Dean Dairy truck depot. So all the Dean Dairy's would go- Trucks would end up there at the end of the night and we would buy our milk straight from them because they had the dairy right there. Well, they obviously went out of business. And now we're buying our milk from Hartzler out of Wooster, because we try and support local businesses as much as we can. But I lost my train of thought, what I was talking about.
Heidi Fearing [00:25:02] The young people came in.
Tommy Fello [00:25:04] Oh, yeah, the young people came in, and they were always coming in because they liked the milkshakes. But when they came and they sat at the counter, we just had seven seats and all they had. I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but it was a big thing back then in the late sixties, early seventies, when you're driving along the turnpike, you'd have a rest stop. Well, microwaves weren't invented then, so what they had and what I used all the time to were Stewart sandwiches. And Stewart sandwiches were a cellophane bag with a premade hamburger and a bun all in the cellophane wrap. And you'd stick them into this oven. It was like a Betty Crocker oven with a light bulb on top and bottom. And I think if- Have you seen the ovens that I have at the store now where the lid lifts up and there's a bright light in it? Well, think of a smaller version of that, with two bulbs about this big there and two bulbs there. So as someone would come and order a hamburger, I would take that package with the cellophane and everything, put it into that oven. The cellophane would burn all the way around it. And then he'd take it out, pick off the burned piece of cellophane, serve the burger. That's the type of food we were serving, and everyone hated it, but they loved the milkshakes. And we made some good egg salad that the lady, the Jewish guy worked for before the Lebanese guy showed us how to make. But really people were just coming for the milkshakes. We didn't have French fries or anything like that. No fryer was even in the building. But Fauzi, who was the guy I worked for from Lebanon, his wife would bring him falafel, bring him a hummus or a baba sandwich, and the people would say, what is he eating? And we'd tell him, why don't you serve that? Because, why are we eating this? We're vegetarian. We don't have anything for us to eat. Have a milkshake. It may be a salad, but can you get something and start serving that? So we started serving the spinach pies and stuff like that. And our whole menu is based- Because I was the cook, the cashier, the bottle washer, everything. I had to do everything at once. So the same people ordered the same sandwiches. That's what the names on our menu are. They are a history of all the people that ever worked or lived in the street, that ate at the restaurant, that had something almost every day. So rather than writing it down, I just wrote their initials or some named it after their pet or some named it after their wife, or whatever. But all the names mean something to me and mean a little bit about the street. Now, those people are all over the world. Some are famous, some work with Walt Disney. Some have been on Broadway. Some have gone to school in England, famous artists. And they all come back down to the street. And whenever they're there, they stop in to say, hey, where's so and so? And if now with the Internet, it's pretty cool, you know, you can say, oh, here's his email address. But back then, we think he's living in New York. Try this district or something, and they'd try and look him up. Or when they came back into town, I'd get their number from him, and next time the other guy came back, I'd get his number. So it's really like a family sort of network. And those people are really near and dear to me because they helped me stay in business, really a couple things, because I really know what I was doing. when I started I was just out of high school. I went to Heights High, graduated from Heights in 1970 and didn't go to college. I went to one year of computer programming school, which was called ICM, which is right now it's on 19th and Euclid, but that's where Cleveland State is now. Right around there. There's a little school up on- You'd go up this elevator. It was a third floor, and my whole- It was a nine month class. My whole class was strictly typing in and punching the keycards, learning how to do that, and then doing a little bit of basic assembly language, Cobalt and Fortran, flowcharts and stuff. I never really got to really use a computer because there's so much other things to do. And one time we went to, I think it was National City Bank or Union Trust or something. They had a big office downtown. The big thing is, we're going to go see the big computers. These computers filled this room. That's how big they were. I mean, you'd go and they had reel to reel, and reel to reel was really brand new because usually you're typing all these cards in, and so if you wanted to type something to go on the computer, you would type, "Tommy has to go to work." That'd be six cards with Tommy on one. And you'd take these cards and you just put them in this thing, and it was like. It was like I said, I like this, but I don't see myself doing this. So the whole time I was selling sandwiches down there because they didn't have cafeteria. So I'd bring hummus sandwich or baba sandwich down there. And people had never had it before. They'd never even seen pita bread at that point. And I had never known about pita bread if it wasn't for the fella from Lebanon. And people, it was really cool. They said, well, let's start some sandwiches on this. And we started doing it, and the rest really, basically, is history, because more and more people came and ate. And what started as seven seats, now we have 125 seats, and we have so many people are loyal customers that still come back, and they like it because it's a little bit of their history and their youth, or their children's youth, or they met their significant other there in the store where we were after. Our first store was on, where the Inn on Coventry is. We lost our lease there, and we went down to right where Mac's Backs is now. Now, that was our entryway, but our store was like an L shape. And right now, Steve from Big Fun has the L part of our L-shaped store, and Suzanne has our entryway. Well, we had a balcony, and then back in the L shape, where Big Fun is now, that was all our dining. So we'd walk in, the soda fountain was there, and the cook station was there. And upstairs there were some seats, but the majority of the seats were in the L part, where they're seating first floor, seating second floor. We put this balcony in there, and in the basement was the bathrooms. Well, right before getting ready to open, there was a water bed store in front of us called Waterworks. Well, something happened in their basement. Something caught on fire and wiped out our whole dining room. So when we first opened up - luckily the city let us open, otherwise they could, I probably wouldn't even been in business now - they bent the rules a little bit because we really didn't have a back. We had a front exit, but no back exit. So they let us open up. But the neat thing about it was, let's say you came in and you didn't know me, and you wanted to sit down and eat, and I came, and I didn't know you. There was no more tables, so we were sat together. My dad, who worked with me, he was a chemical engineer for Sohio at night, he'd come
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