I’m standing behind the counter of my diner for the last time. It’s December 15th, 2022. And after 43 years, Holloway’s diner is closing its doors forever. The bank’s coming tomorrow to take the keys. I’m 68 years old, broke, and saying goodbye to the only thing I have left of my wife. But then, three strangers walk in with a lawyer, and one of them says something that stops my heart.
“Mr. Holloway, do you remember the blizzard of 1992?”
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It’s 6:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning in December, the coldest day of the year so far in Valentine, Nebraska. A small town on Highway 20, halfway between nowhere and nothing. Population’s been declining for 20 years. Ever since the meat packing plant closed and the young people started leaving for Omaha or Denver or anywhere with more opportunity than a dying prairie town could offer, I’ve been awake since 4, like I have been every morning for the past 43 years. Old habits don’t die just because your business is dying.
I lay in bed for an hour in the apartment above the diner. The same apartment Joanne and I moved into in 1979 when we were 25 years old and stupid enough to think we could make a living selling eggs and coffee in rural Nebraska. The same bed where she died 3 years ago, holding my hand, telling me to keep the diner open, to not give up. I gave up anyway. Not right away, but slowly, month by month, bill by bill, until there was nothing left to do but surrender.
I unlock the front door of Holloway’s diner, flip on the lights, and stand there for a moment, looking at the place I built with my own hands. Red vinyl booths along the windows. Recovered twice in 1991 and 2008, getting more expensive each time. A long for mica counter with chrome-legged stools. Some of them wobbling now because the welds are old and I can’t afford to fix them. A jukebox in the corner that hasn’t worked since 2003, but I can’t bring myself to throw away because Joanne loved that jukebox. Used to play Paty Klein while she waited tables.
The walls are covered with photos, layers of them, decades of them overlapping like pages in a scrapbook. Customers celebrating birthdays. local high school sports teams after championship games. The Valentine High School class of 89 after prom. All of them crammed into the back room in their tuxedos and puffy dresses. The annual pancake breakfast fundraiser that we hosted for 35 years straight. Community events from four decades of being the heart of this town.
There’s a photo of me and Joanne on opening day front and center above the register. Both of us 25 years old, grinning like idiots in front of our brand new diner. She’s wearing her waitress uniform, pink dress with white apron, her name embroidered on the pocket, hair pulled back in a ponytail. I’m in my cook’s apron, skinny as a rail back then. Full head of brown hair that’s now completely gray. We look like we’re going to live forever. Like nothing bad will ever happen to us. Like this diner will outlast us both. Two out of three wasn’t bad.
Joanne died two years ago, 2020, right before the pandemic hit. and the world went insane. Pancreatic cancer, diagnosis to death in 4 months. She spent her last weeks in the apartment upstairs in our bed, looking out the window at the diner below. Sometimes customers would wave up at her. She’d wave back even when she was too weak.
“Promise me you’ll keep it open,” she said 3 days before she died. Her voice was barely a whisper. “The diner. It’s our legacy, Frank. It’s what we built together.”
“I promise.”
I said I tried. God knows I tried, but the pandemic destroyed us. We went to take out only for 18 months. Lost 70% of our revenue. The overhead stayed the same. Rent, utilities, insurance, equipment leases. I took out loans I couldn’t afford, maxed out credit cards, applied for every grant, every assistance program. Some helped, most didn’t. By 2021, I was underwater. By 2022, I was drowning.
The bank sent the foreclosure notice in September. I had 90 days. I spent those 90 days trying to find a buyer, someone who wanted a diner in a dying town. Nobody did. Why would they? Valentine, Nebraska wasn’t exactly a growth market. So, here we are. December 15th, 2022, the last day. Tomorrow, the bank takes the keys and Holloway’s diner becomes whatever corporate chain they can sell it to. Probably a Dollar General. Everything becomes a Dollar General eventually.
I walk behind the counter, tie on my apron, the same style I wore in that photo, just 43 years more worn, the white fabric gone gray from a thousand washings, and start the coffee. The big industrial machine Joanne and I bought used in 1982 that’s broken down 50 times, and I fixed it 50 times because I refused to replace it. It groans to life, gurgling and hissing, and within minutes, the smell of coffee fills the diner. Rich, dark, familiar. The same smell that’s greeted customers every morning since 1979.
Outside, the sun’s starting to come up over the Nebraska plains. December sunrise, painting the frozen grass gold and pink, long shadows stretching across Highway 20. It’s beautiful. It’s always been beautiful. That’s what Joanne used to say.
“We might not have much, Frank, but we have this view. We have this light that’s worth something.”
Worth something, but not worth $180,000. Not worth saving the diner.
I crack eggs onto the grill, lay out bacon, make hash browns from scratch like I’ve done every morning for 43 years. Muscle memory. Knife work I could do blind. the rhythm of cooking that’s been my meditation, my prayer, my way of processing life since I was younger than my customers grandkids. This is the last time I’ll make coffee in this diner. The last time I’ll crack eggs on this grill. The last time I’ll hear the bell above the door jingle when customers walk in.
The bell jingles.
“Morning, Frank.”
Its deputy Jimmy Scott, Sheriff’s Department, works the night shift. stops in every morning at 6:15 for coffee and eggs before going home. Been doing it for 12 years.
“Morning, Jimmy.”
“Usual.”
“Yeah.”
“And Frank.”
He pauses, takes off his hat.
“I’m real sorry about today. This town won’t be the same without this place.”
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