ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

"A time to be born, and a time to die..." (from Ecclesiastes 3:2)

A friend and I made arrangements to meet for lunch on Tuesday at Bickford's on Lincoln Street in Worcester. Upon arriving, the parking lot did not seem well plowed, and there was one car in the lot - his. A sign on the door indicated the restaurant had closed. This reminded me of a Saturday morning last February when Mary Ann and I had our tax appointment over in Foxboro. We planned to stop at Bickford's in Sharon on the way to our appointment. Likewise, we saw a parking lot with very few cars in it, and found a sign on the door saying the restaurant had closed. Bickford's in Sharon HAD been a big breakfast and family restaurant for that area for over forty years, so the closing sign came as quite a surprise. (I grew up only about 6 or 7 miles from that restaurant and our family went there many times when I was a kid.) In fact, I've heard that a number of the Bickford's restaurants have closed in recent years. Those which have remained opened typically have acquired liquor licenses and focus much more on lunch and dinner than on breakfast. That's been the case with the Framingham Bickford's which is now "Bickfords Grille" but has moved its nightly closing time from 10, to 9, to 8:30 and seldom has much of a crowd inside.

At our church, I sometimes will schedule a special night service featuring a guest speaker. After the service has ended, it's nice to be able to bring him to a restaurant nearby which has moderate prices and pretty good food. A few years ago, it was embarrassing on a Sunday night when I had such a guest speaker follow me to LaCantina on Waverley Street, Framingham. We got there at around 5 minutes after 9 and found out they wouldn't seat anyone after 9. I then had him follow me to Ruby Tuesday's on Route 9 and found out they'd serve us alcoholic drinks but that the kitchen closed at 9. Finally, we ended up at Bickford's but that was in the 10 0'clock closing days. The Ninety-Nine Restaurant (part of the New England chain) in Ashland (just over the Framingham line) ended up becoming a really nice fit for such situations. It was also a nice place to bring a friend for lunch if they'd dropped in to see me around Noon. I say "was" because I was shocked to learn yesterday that the Ashland Ninety-Nine Restaurant is closing by the end of this week!

My understanding is that breakfast and family type restaturants are being particularly hard hit by this economy. There are obvious demographic reasons why breakfast and family type restaurants tend to do better in places like the Bible belt than than do in greater Boston. Even so, it's a shame to keep losing my options on family type restaurants in the south Framingham area especially for dining during the 9-11 p.m. hours. I would LOVE to have a Denny's come into the Framingham-Natick area. (My friend Gary and I ended up at Denny's in Worcester when we discovered the closed Bickford's) I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a Denny's to open up, however. Well, come to think of it, the last time I was in Springfield, Missouri, I drove by Denny's which had been a huge hangout for college students in the 1970s. I'd eaten there on some of my trips out there during this decade, but even there in the Bible belt, the sign had been removed, and there was a sign on the door saying that particular Denny's had closed!

Is there a Howard Johnson's anywhere? We had a great Howard Johnson's in Canton when I was growing up there and that building is now a large Dunkin Donuts. No, I know, there are no more Howard Johnson restaurants anymore! These breakfast/family chain restaurants....more and more they're biting the dust...