[Boomer]

We have 5 favorite, locally owned restaurants that we go to when we are back home. Each of them is having problems with suppliers and help.

One of them is closing its doors after 46 years. Their announcement brought with it a flashback of a part of our married lives. . .

When Mr. Boomer and I were first married in the 1970s, we could not afford to go there.

Later we could afford go there, but only on special occasions — for their award-winning brunch.

(When they re-opened “after” the pandemic, the brunch was gone. One of the servers told us that brunches require a lot of staff which they did not have. (I hope all of us always tipped well at a brunch because a lot of people were working their butts off for you — but maybe you did not notice.)

I think also that brunches, no matter how higher-end, how beautifully presented and inviting, are now a thing of the past, forever, because of how some fellow-diners, in line, too, are not the most careful with health precautions.)

Now, in our “mature” years, we could go to this restaurant whenever we wanted to and had started back.

We were there recently, and although the food was just as good, the servers were very young. They did fine, but we missed seeing the older servers who had been there for a long time.

(I suspect that many older servers who have worked for years in well-known local restaurants — where the tips were especially good and the management treated them with respect and knew how to build a team — have decided it is time to protect their health and so have hung up their sensible shoes.)

I have heard supplies were becoming more impossible to get. This place was known for their desserts, especially cheesecake, and now I hear that cream cheese is really hard to find. I have also heard the supply truck is making only a centralized stop so managers have to drive to one spot to pick up their orders — and that their orders are not always everything they need.

The restaurant I am talking about here is called The Grand Finale. . .how sadly ironic it is that. . .they must end. . .”not with a bang but a whimper.”

Boomer. (with a nod to T. S. Eliot)