Dear Reader:

Memorial Day certainly aligned to its namesake… remembering and memories… but with another different type memory… embedded in me … that brought personal joy for 44 years… The Continental Corner.

Perhaps because it was a stay-at-home quiet Memorial Day… I was looking through a series of photos on the history of Summerville and suddenly this photo of my most beloved all-time favorite restaurant ( ever!) Continental Corner popped up.

Immediately I could feel myself growing nostalgic at the memories because the Continental Corner just wasn’t a restaurant but a popular gathering place for luncheons with friends and family, a connection to my Aunt Eva who knew the owners and worked with them in Greenville before they decided to move to Summerville to open up the soon-to-be famous Greek restaurant. They never failed to ask about my aunt after we first went there and they made the family connection.

I had moved to the Lowcountry in August of 1971 ( after graduating from Erskine) to begin teaching but Brooke and I shared an apartment in Charleston and commuted those first two years… so didn’t spend leisure time in Summerville.

It was November 3, 1972 when the restaurant opened… Since I was commuting I never got to go to it until I married the following year, now living in Summerville and mother and Aunt Eva came for a weekend visit. We were going out for lunch and Aunt Eva said she would like to go to the new Greek restaurant because she knew Tom and Ernie… they had worked together earlier and she wanted to see them and how their dream had turned out.

There were a lot of hugging and both men were so happy to inform Aunt Eva that their dream had come true… everything was going very well.

It was the day… I fell in love with the restaurant! And that love didn’t stop with me… Mandy adored it and when she was home from college or teaching… later married …it was the place we all went!

Then when Walsh and Tommy married… Mollie and Kaitlyn would come for the day and they fell in love with it-only place either wanted to eat at for lunch.

When the Dingle girls would get together to go to the Summerville Little Theater in town… we always met at Continental Corner before the performance. A tradition!

In fact I still remember my last meal there ( not knowing it was) I had their Mediterranean Omelet… with their Greek potatoes they were famous for… and I have never tasted again … since their closure on July 8 2017 … six years ago!

I am not alone in my elongated mourning period .., whenever Mollie or Kaitlyn come to Summerville and we talk about where to go for lunch, without fail, there are deep sighs and a longing to return to the Continental Corner.

The day the news hit the media about the Continental Corner closing… the phone never stopped ringing… it was the same conversation over and over… comments like ” I was just in there a couple of days ago and everything seemed normal… business as usual… how could this have happened?”

Over four decades… it was an ” historical landmark ” to Summerville residents!

So until tomorrow… Ernie perhaps summed it up best in the closing comment ( Tom had passed ) ” JOYFUL SORROW.”

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

So true! Summerville had Ernest Yatrelis and Tom Maurikes for over four decades… how much joy they brought to our hometown-they were greatly loved and we are gratefully indebted to them.