The Market Street Diamond's was doing very well, serving a more family oriented and professional crowd then they did back in Girard but it all came to a screeching halt in 1981 when the business minded John died. The year I was born was the same year that my Uncle John died, and with his death the family was forced to close the restaurant. Diamond's took on a new name that year, it became Godfrey's Restaurant, then Casey's, then finally The Copper Kettle before it permanently stopped serving the public and closed in 1986.
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My grandma stayed with the restaurant through all of its name changes, waitressing to the same customers year after year. When the building finally closed my grandma continued to waitress until finally retiring in 1999, when she moved into her daughter Sophie's house (and with her two darling granddaughters, Kristen and Athena) in Lisbon, Ohio.
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My grandma always said that she loved her job. She really enjoyed the people. While she can remember spending so much time in her neighborhood and being so involved as a child she now didn't have such strong community ties any more. She in fact says that she knew her customers better than her neighbors. She learned about community affairs through the politicians and mobsters that frequented the restaurants. She didn't have much time for her neighbors and before she moved away in 1999 she was the only Greek lady left in the neighborhood.
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the original punk rocker |
The people who made Diamond's restaurant what it was were the customers and the close knit family of workers. Everyone gave something to the experience of being at Diamond's. Being a football fan at the Super bowl Party or being behind the counter like Pat Stonestreet, if you were there you were family. Everyone belonged at Diamond's, and the people who were there were not afraid to let that be known.