THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 25, 1995 TAG: 9502250226
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Surrounded by farewell flowers, her eyes pink-rimmed, Polly Marshall hugged herself with solid arms and scanned the restaurant she helped turn into a landmark.
``I don't want to cry today,'' she said, too late.
Roseva Reid, her longtime cohort, sagged against the counter beside her. ``Oh, this is a sad day,'' she sighed. ``This is a melancholy day.''
It was that. Mercer's Boathouse closed Friday.
Roseva cooked her last meals at the droopy-roofed, creekside diner, a gathering place for judges and blacksmiths, laborers and anglers since 1948. Polly finished her last shift delivering home-style comfort to customers who over the years came to know her, know Roseva, and know each other.
The ladies' retirement, coupled with the illness of owner Vivian Mercer, means the little shack on the Chesapeake-Virginia Beach line probably won't reopen as a restaurant. With it vanishes a link to the surrounding swampland's past, to a Chesapeake untrammeled by strip malls and eight-lane boulevards and matchstick housing tracts.
``This place has been just like it was back in the old country times,'' said Betty Gosma, who worked here on and off for 22 years and kept coming back for coffee and conversation. ``Everybody knows everybody else, and everybody talks.''
So on Friday dozens of customers, many stooped with age, some barely able to walk, drove down to thank the ladies for years of friendship, advice and prompt service.
As always, they ducked under the low ceiling, sat beneath signs reading ``No Profanity,'' read the day's menu from a blackboard that dangled over a freezer stocked with red wigglers and shiners.
Most didn't need the menu. ``They know that on Thursdays it's steak, Wednesdays it's chicken, Tuesdays it's meatloaf,'' Polly said.
Roseva: ``Mondays it's guess what.''
Polly: ``Fridays it's usually fish.''
Some, like Virginia Beach's Circuit Court judges - daily customers since the 1950s - brought flowers. ``You cry,'' Judge Kenneth N. Whitehurst Jr. told Polly, as Judge Jerome B. Friedman produced a vase of roses. ``I'll take the orders.''
Others left the ladies with hugs. ``I come in here every day for some nice, sit-down food,'' said Colin Whitehurst, a bushy-bearded construction worker and no kin to the judge. ``You can get it here quicker'n you get it at McDonald's, and it's good grub. It ain't no mess.''
They were part of the faithful who have made a second home of Mercer's since Vivian opened the place in an Army surplus shack next door to her husband's worm farm. A few regulars, like former Princess Anne County Sheriff Johnny Vaughan, have eaten here since.
The diner became popular with workers from the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, 3 1/2 miles to the east. ``We were counting up,'' said Larry Davenport, eating lunch with two City Hall colleagues. ``There's 64 years of eating at this restaurant sitting at this table.''
Vivian Mercer hired Polly Marshall, a West Virginia miner's daughter, 21 years ago. Roseva showed up nine years back. Throughout their stay, Mercer's never had a cash register; change was kept in a countertop trough, and bills in a hidden drawer. Regulars ran tabs that were posted on the back of the front door.
And Polly and Roseva came to know what their customers wanted better than they did. Late Friday morning, Jesse Bell strode in as he had since boyhood, hollered hello and stopped in front of the counter.
``Let me have the catfish,'' he told Roseva. He studied the chalkboard, rubbing his chin. Several seconds passed.
``Collards?'' Roseva asked.
``Yeah,'' Bell nodded, ``collards.''
Another pause. ``Potato salad?'' Roseva asked.
Bell chuckled. ``Yeah,'' he said. ``Potato salad.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Paul Aiken, Staff
Polly Marshall hugs a longtime customer, Richard Dunford, Friday,
the last day of Mercer's Boathouse. Dunford works in the Virginia
Beach finance department. Roseva Reid works in the background.
by CNB