Places you can't go back to

[Uncle Erik]

Today, a favorite restaurant had a silent auction of its fixtures. I didn't go, but I was there on the last day they were open and ate the usual. It had been open since the 1940s, I had been going my entire life and my family has been going for over 50 years.

Also recently learned that a century-old house I spent a year living in is now a parking lot. A tiki bar I spent many evenings in is now a drive-through ATM for a bank.

Seems that a lot of places are disappearing these days. So if anyone wants to wax nostalgic about places they wish were still around, talk about it here. Businesses, houses, anything. Let's pay tribute in this thread.

 

[rm71]

I have a couple. My old university was on prime real estate. It now an exclusive housing estate... The other is my grandmother's house. After she passed away last year it was sold. We spent so much time there as kids and even adults. A great thread mate!

 

[Pumpkin]

From the title, I thought this would be about places you're not allowed to visit for legal reasons! I was wondering if we'd find out that someone was barred from entering the state of Nebraska, for example

 

[The Nid Hog]

There was a diner that I used to like to go to with my dad when I was a kid. He worked the night shift, and sometimes he and I would go eat breakfast there before I went to school. It was a classic place--like something out of one of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories. After you'd been in for a while, John the cook (and owner) would get to know you. He'd start making your breakfast as soon as you walked in the door if you were a regular. That meant you got the same thing every time. But that was OK with the regulars. The city bought up all of the buildings on the block, tore them down and built a parking garage. Nobody ever uses it because all the businesses are gone. The movie theaters, drive ins where I used to go have all been closed or torn down. The dive bar where I'd get a drink after work is gone too. Pretty much every business that I patronized in my home town when I was growing up has been closed.

When I lived in Chicago, there was a coffee shop where I hung out all the time. It was a long way from my neighborhood, but I'd go there and read for hours. One day I noticed that there were all kinds of people from my neighborhood sitting around there at their own tables, reading. We probably all went there to escape one another. Anyway, it closed down and they converted it into the house for the idiots from MTV's "Real World" when they filmed in Chicago.

 

[Kouros]

An old bar from college burned down. They had the best bar food ever: wings, chili, cheese fries. A real dive. I would visit every year. I haven't found a place that comes close.

 

[hicksdm]

My grandma's house no longer is there. When she passed the house was in terrible shape so after much thought my parents demolished it. I did get the old porch swing which now resides on my front porch. I miss walking in that creaky front door and the smells that came from that kitchen. Man that woman could cook, she feared the Lord, and could swing a mean switch when the time came.

 

[instpasr]

There was an ice cream shop down the road when we were growing up now it's a beverage store. we loved that place.

 

[DavyRay]

I'm no longer allowed into the state of Nebraska.

 

[KaiserKrebs]

Well, when I was younger...here in California the A&W drive Ins were actual drive ins. Best burgers and rootbeer ever, the order was placed on one of those speaker equipped menu boards, and each car space had it's own, car hops brought the food out on those trays that hung on your car window. The strip mall current version of A&W pales in comparison..even the rootbeer isn't as good anymore.

Last year a fantastic Mexican restaraunt closed in my home town, It had been open since 1947. My family had been going there since I was six or seven years old, I'm 39 now. The food was simple but delicious, I ordered 9 out of 10 times the two taco dinner plate, hardshell ground beef tacos with rice and beans. I've eaten mexican food all over the U.S. and nothing comes close to those tacos at my favorite joint. The week they closed, my wife and I went for a last meal..I hugged the owner who could not save the restaraunt, due to economic hardship. We both had tears in our eyes.

I used to go to an old dive bar in my hometown as well...it was near the local airport, and I had a friend that owned an antique bi-plane. We'd meet up and go flying, then have a few post flight " Milkshakes" at the bar, sometimes they had free bar food, and I thought that life couldn't get any better. The bar was torn down during a time when I lived away from where I grew up..another strip mall stands on the " Holy ground" of my unencumbered, and full of promise 20's.

 

[pauls51]

A football stadium (Waverley Park) that I use to go to regularly during the AFL/VFL season was purchased by developers and now is a housing estate

 

[Jim]

Anywhere with my Dad.

 

[Falstaff]

So many to mention..I'm gonna have to get back with you on this one. I'm sure I can condense my memories to the "one".

 

[DavyRay]

My neighborhood bar was down the street from a major teaching hospital. We had cops, rednecks, phD researchers, and lawyers in the place. It was a little shotgun beer bar. I loved it. A road project wiped it out. They moved the interstate, and it was gone.

 

[kadett]

Places you can't go back to?


From my own perspective its the same as Thomas Wolfe once wrote:


"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

 

[Nishnabotna]

I'm no longer allowed into the state of Nebraska.

And let this be a warning to the rest of you.

 

[M80]

I miss Deli Haus and The Rat in Kenmore Square, Boston, MA.

 

[Bill Smith]

I miss the Rotterdam brew pub in Toronto, they used to brew Amsterdam line of microbrews upstairs. They shut the pub down almost ten years ago to focus on just brewing beer.

 

[AlanL]

My high school is no longer a high school. The churches where I was baptized and where I attended as a teen are both closed.

 

[BigRich]

The last three of my favorite Italian restaurants in Atlanta are all gone. Georgia isn't exactly a hub for good Italian food so these are all sorely missed. They were all there for 20 to 40 years. I'm scared to find a new place. I might jinx it.

 

[cjokrap]

My grandparent's house is gone, as is my elementary school, high school, and church from my youth. Also gone is the house I grew up in, and the parking lot I learned how to play baseball in.