THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602170105
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 165 lines
DAPHNE TEELE SAT elbow-to-elbow with friends last week at the Nansemond Drug lunch counter, a mecca of inexpensive food served fast and of fellowship reminiscent of bygone days.
Teele, a regular at the Main Street establishment for 33 years, was having trouble eating that day, though the tuna salad was as tasty as always.
It was the news she had heard that was hard to swallow: The lunch counter was closing.
Wednesday will be the last chance to grab a chicken salad cold plate or a BLT with fries and a fresh-squeezed lemonade.
``We don't know what we're going to do,'' said Kay Holland, one of Teele's fellow diners and a co-worker at the law firm of Glasscock, Gardy & Savage next door.
``We'll probably get in the car and go somewhere or bring our lunch some,'' said Teele, a legal assistant. ``It's just not going to be as much fun.''
At the Nansemond, they visit with friends while eating.
``You come down and talk to people you know,'' Teele said. ``You don't feel alone.''
Rite Aid Pharmacy has bought the drug store, a fixture on one side of Main Street or the other since 1905. On Friday, the national chain will take over the business - minus the lunch counter.
Peggy Hopewell has run the store alone for the past three years since her pharmacist husband, David, suffered a stroke. His health, she said, was a big factor in selling the store they had owned for 22 years.
At least until a new Rite Aid nearly four times as large as the Nansemond opens about five blocks away, company officials will operate the store and pharmacy in the heart of downtown.
Some say the Nansemond is the heart of downtown, if not the city.
Glenn Ellis, who lives in an apartment in the same block of Main Street, can drive his motorized wheelchair to the Nansemond. The lunch counter's closing will be difficult for him.
``It's like losing a life, in a sense,'' he said. ``It just tears my heart up.''
``There is just no comparison to this,'' he said. ``I call it good fellowship.''
At least three generations of Suffolkians have dined there, grabbing a grilled cheese sandwich and downing a thick milkshake on a lunch break or while waiting for a prescription to be filled.
Many, like Thaxton and Anna Brown, line up on the lunch stools for more than sandwiches and drinks. Two cups of coffee reached the far end of the 18-inch wide linoleum counter before they could grab the empty spots at the rear of the diner.
``He's one of our worst customers,'' barked Loretta McCray, beginning the bantering the cooks dish out along with burgers and fries.
After retiring from the Post Office, Brown occasionally ate at the Nansemond while waiting for a prescription.
``This got to be a habit,'' he said, writing out his own order on the green ticket. ``Now, the prescriptions are secondary.''
Many downtown employees have come to rely on the Nansemond for a quick, economical lunch.
News of the closing spread quickly.
``Next week?'' asked Corrine Rowlette, who works at the Department of Corrections half a block away.
Rowlette, an employee ombudsman, and her co-workers come to the Nansemond for more than food.
``They've gotten to know us,'' said Rowlette, who lives in Chesapeake. ``They know when there's any change in our office. We're here all the time.''
McCray and the other employees make them feel at home, she said.
The Nansemond crowd - including the cooks who eat along with the regular customers when the crowds thin out - is more than a lunch bunch.
``It's family,'' Rowlette said.
She had been counting on her behind-the-counter friends to help her with her diet if she became pregnant again.
``I'm thinking about having another baby,'' she said. ``My first was a high risk pregnancy, but I knew they would help me eat right.''
She and Stephanie Jarvis, a DOC fiscal technician, waited for take-out orders. Jarvis couldn't believe the news either.
``It's just like Cheers,'' Jarvis said, waiting for her grilled cheese sandwich. ``There's even a hat rack where they can hang their hat.
``What are we going to do?'' she asked, shaking her head in dismay.
``Just sweat real hard and adjust,'' said McCray, as she wiped the counter with a rag. ``That's all we can do.''
McCray, who's been cooking there 17 years, spotted a customer standing near the greeting cards.
``You need something, honey?'' she asked. ``Have you been waited on?''
The woman ordered a steak sandwich to go, and as McCray chopped the meat that sizzled on the dark grill, she kept up a running dialogue with the customers.
The night before, she had jotted a note to two elderly ladies in Colonial Heights who always stop for lunch when they come to town.
``They always said, `I don't know what I would do if this place closed,' '' McCray said as she wrapped the steak sandwich in waxed paper. ``I didn't want them coming down and finding it closed.''
Handing the woman a brown bag, she pointed to the cash register clerk up front. ``Tell her what you got, honey,'' she said.
Like many of the customers, John Boyce - an accountant who eats at the Nansemond once a week - worried about the waitresses, who would soon be out of work.
``It's really a shame,'' he said, as Gloria Dolsberry handed him his usual - a chicken salad sandwich. ``I think the business would really be good with the City Hall coming.''
For years, the women have made fresh chicken and tuna salad every day and cooked side by side in the long, narrow work space. McCray tried to keep her spirits up, despite the looming deadline.
``All good things come to an end,'' she said. ``What am I going to do at 5 o'clock and 6 o'clock in the morning when I take a shower and come to work? I can't do that no more.''
Even word that a petition was circulating, asking the Rite Aid management to keep the counter open, failed to cheer the forlorn crowd.
``I hate this,'' said Wallace Walton, who says he's been around the Nansemond longer than anybody.
The drug counter's demise marks the passing of an era, said Walton, credit manager for Rawles-Aden Lumber Corp.
``It's one of those things we've got to accept, I guess,'' he said.
For Harry Lee Cross III, eating at the Nansemond has been a family tradition he has enjoyed continuing. He and his wife, Lisa, drove downtown to celebrate Valentine's Day with their favorite - a BLT.
Sitting in the store's only booth, Harry Cross gulped down a vanilla milkshake while his wife sipped on a fresh-squeezed lemonade, one of the house specialties.
Frank Tetrich, a supervisor at Western Tidewater Mental Health Center, nursed a special fountain drink as he paid his tab. ``Where else can you get a diet cherry Coke?'' he said.
The Nansemond is the last of the city's downtown lunch counters, where customers could swap the news of the day over lunch, pick up a prescription and pick out a greeting card in one stop.
``This is the place to meet your friends,'' said Jack Nurney, president of Nurney-Stephenson Corp. - an insurance company on West Washington Street. ``Or make new friends.''
The lunch counter's closing would be a great loss to the community, Nurney said.
``Somehow we'll evolve,'' he said.
``But it won't be this wonderful camaraderie.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
CLOSED AFTER 90 YEARS
ON THE COVER
Daphne P. Teele jokes with friends at Nansemond Drug Company's lunch
counter. To her right is patron Sandra Nosil. Staff photo by John H.
Sheally II.
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
A grilled cheese or chicken salad sandwich are two favorites on the
menu.
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Lunch counter regulars at Nansemond Drug Company are, left to right,
Kay Holland, Cynthia Robertson, Daphne Teele and Sandra Nosil.
Mary Evelyn Wilkins makes change for a lunch counter patron.
Gloria Dolsberry gets ready to warm up a batch of chili at the
grill. At least three generations of Suffolkians have dined at the
Nansemond Drug Company's lunch counter, grabbing a grilled cheese
sandwich and downing a thick milkshake on a lunch break or while
waiting for a prescription to be filled.
Delores Johnson enjoys lunch while she chats with Loretta McCray,
who works in the drug store's pharmacy.
by CNB