THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 29, 1995 TAG: 9501290050
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: Paul South
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
All was quiet behind my apartment building Friday morning. The usual sounds - the clatter of dishes, the clink of silverware - were not to be heard.
The smells were absent, too. No aroma of hash browns or sizzling bacon or fresh-brewed coffee. All gone.
The Duchess of Dare was no more. The downtown Manteo institution ended a long reign not with ruffles and flourishes but with a quiet turn of a key.
New owners have taken over, and it will never be quite the same.
For those unfamiliar with the Duchess - and my guess is there are few of you - it was one of those landmarks a town worth its salt must have. It was the place where people might not have known your name but they knew your face. Where old friends met every morning to talk politics, or basketball or anything.
Where a total stranger could get a smile.
``If you want to know what's going on in town, eat breakfast at the Duchess,'' someone said shortly after my arrival here.
And that was true. Grab a booth at the Duchess, and you'll hear who's sick, who's having a baby, who's getting married, and who's passed away. All the mileposts that mark our lives could be heard about here - in a rich eastern North Carolina accent that made stories better, like good gravy on biscuits.
Doris Walker was a divorced mother of four when she opened Walker's Diner 48 years ago. Later, it was renamed ``The Duchess of Dare.''
``Mom opened this restaurant and raised four kids all by herself,'' said Walker's daughter, Earlene Brantley. ``She made the place what it is. The regulars who came in eventually stopped calling her Doris, and just called her Duchess.
``A lot of the folks who used to come in and drink coffee have passed on,'' she said. ``They had their own reserved seat, and if someone came in and sat down in one of the regulars' places, and the regular came in, that person would have to move.
``Those folks who came in at the same time every day, they were like part of our family.''
Among those regulars was Marc Basnight, now state Senate president pro tem.
``As far as politics goes, you got more rumor than substance,'' he said. ``But it was a place where you could find out who needed help in the community - who was sick, who was having money troubles, whose pipes had busted, or if there was a child in the community who was sick or hurt. If anybody had a need in the human arena, you could find out at the Duchess.''
Basnight said that while the new owners will do a good job with the restaurant, which will be called The Courthouse Cafe, the place will not be the same.
``I can remember as a child going in there with my Dad when it was just a trailer,'' Basnight said. ``No one can replace the Duchess.''
Earlene lost her husband in a trucking accident about a year and a half ago. A short time later, the Duchess herself was ambushed by Alzheimer's disease. For the last four months, Tony Sawyer, whom Earlene dated in high school, has helped her run the restaurant. But as Alzheimer's made off with her mother's mind, it was time for a decision.
``We didn't want to put Mom in a nursing home,'' she said. ``We're going to spend our time taking care of her. That's why we sold the restaurant.''
While in her heart she knows she's doing the right thing, the first day away from the diner was an emotional one.
``I woke up this morning, looked at the clock, and thought, `I'm late,' '' she said. ``Then I remembered we didn't have to go in. When I think about all the people whose faces we won't see every day, it makes me want to cry.''
For those long- and short-time regulars, Friday was a tough day, too. It was as if something good and familiar, like a discarded favorite sweater, had been taken from our lives.
Come to think of it, it is appropriate that the Duchess of Dare exited our lives quietly. And as an era ends, we are left with the recipe for how all things worth missing should leave us:
With an ample dash of kindness, a heaping tablespoon of memories, and brimming bowls of love. ILLUSTRATION: DREW C. WILSON
Staff file
Doris Walker ran - and became - The Duchess of Dare. She posed for
this photo in 1991.
by CNB