One thing I had admired about the staff at the Café Bon Appetit was the apparent camaraderie across departments, age, and race (something I never knew from my years in retail). I would watch them all chat to each other and acknowledge each other as they passed by tables. There was a definite sense of community among the Bay staff. I came to know the dining staff. I heard about their families. They came to recognise us from the other diners. The dining staff looked after the elderly women who came in, bringing them their food with politeness and warmth. There was something traditionally familiar, especially for the elderly. They always did their best to accommodate anyone’s requests. Rice pudding, please?!? 

I have memories of not even 30 years ago, in my childhood, going to Steiger’s Tea Room. My grandmother and I would go for the special: chicken leg, rice, and corn. Occasionally I would have pink peppermint ice cream in a little metal dish with scalloped edges. It was a treat to be served by the nice ladies in their brown dresses and white aprons. We also came to know them on a first name basis as we sat among the oak-panelled pillars and looked out the big windows on the city. It was a privilege to be allowed into an adult world and to behave accordingly in a polite manner.

Before her recent death, Grandma said there was no place for the elderly. To a point, she was right. But I also think that there is no place for me. I feel the same sense of disconnect that she did. I prefer a leisurely pace (a little decorum would not go amiss either). I don’t want to stand in a queue at a fast-food joint in a mall food court and then wander in search for a rogue seat, all the time worrying someone will take advantage of my balancing act and grab my bags. I don’t want to have to inhale the food before me because there is only a 20-minute window of opportunity. It is too fast a world. People seem to have so much to do in a day and lunch breaks are notoriously brief now. I don’t want to have to sell an arm and a leg for a coffee and muffin or croissant.  I want to sit and have a real but inexpensive meal in quiet and pleasant surroundings. That is not the world around me though.

The world I knew is almost gone. What do I see instead? A demise of gentility. The ending of community. Society rushes forward believing that new is good, old is bad and change is necessary. Perhaps it is just I, a young fuddy-duddy, longing for my past as another link ceases. Where others see progress, I see only loss. I want my sedate world back. I do not wish to be part of this hustle and brashness. As I said at the start, the Café Bon Appetit was a casualty of circumstance. In a sense it was also a victim of society.

The restaurant staff have been transferred. The lights are off. The chairs are empty. I saw the same faces over the past months: Bay staff, elderly ladies, middle-aged men and children. I wonder where they are now. I wonder, where do I go?

See also: http://authspot.com/journals/tis-march-and-the-spring-melt-has-begun-not/

http://trifter.com/usa-canada/ontario/ottawa-a-city-of-two-seasons/