[title type="h6"]Sunday, September 1, 2013.[/title]
I was up earlier than usual, and by nine I had done enough work to figure I owed myself a good, leisurely breakfast. With nobody around the house to join me, I went off to the café at the Marriott Courtyard in Covington. Nobody ever wants to join me there anymore. In the case of Jude and Mary Leigh, it's probably because it reminds them of when they were little kids, and we went to the Courtyard every Saturday morning for years. Grown-up kids don't want reminders of when they were cute little boys and girls. And certainly not in front of their girlfriends and boyfriends.
I took my usual back route there, on what we used to call Sandwich Dog Road (because a dog once ran along with us with what looked like a poor boy in its mouth). Along the way, a long stretch of pine woods had been cut down and hauled away since the last time I was here a few weeks ago. That left an expanse of jumbled, dried mud and pine scraps. Wouldn't be the first time I've seen that along bucolic, familiar roads on the North Shore. But every one hurts.
At the café, the waitress and dining room manager Faith saw me come in and said, "I thought we'd see you today!" How come? "Didn't you hear? Today is the last day for the Café. They're going to turn it into a Bistro!"
Although I hadn't heard that news--my showing up today was purely accidental--I knew exactly what she was talking about. A few months ago, when Mary Ann and I went to Mobile one morning to appear on a television show, we stopped for breakfast at another Marriott Courtyard, expecting to find the modest but usually good buffet we always found under that hotel brand all over the country.
Instead, the Bistro is an order-and-pick-up-at-the-counter place, with the look of a carrel in a shopping mall food court. The well-structured breakfast combinations were made to order and actually not bad, although the minimal service included paper-lined baskets, paper coffee cups, and juice in individual bottles.
[caption id="attachment_36454" align="alignnone" width="480"]
My last basic breakfast at the Courtyard Cafe.[/caption]
Compared with the café that Faith and Chef Gloria have pleased us with for eighteen years, this Bistro was without a soul. Faith said that she would continue working there, and so would Gloria. She seemed positive about it all. But I got the idea that she is no happier about this change than I am.
I made this last Courtyard Café breakfast count. I had a waffle and an English muffin. Scrambled eggs a la Gloria (with the moistness and seasoning I like) and her peppery brabant potatoes. And grits. (The Bistro won't have grits at all.) Some cantaloupe. Bacon. Some more eggs. A big tip. And good-bye.
The set-pieces of the Saturdays in our impossibly wonderful family life have been disappearing for rather a long time now. The Putt-Putt, Sillyville, Sav-A-Center--all gone and remembered fondly. But we spent more time at the Courtyard eating bacon and waffles than all our other regular stops put together.
Surely, this is the end of something, and I don't like thinking about what.
Written by Tom Fitzmorris September 01, 2013 17:12 in
