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For 23 years, Gabriel Khater has come to work at his House of Pizza at 747 Richmond Road.

Seven days a week — 11 a.m. to midnight on weekdays, 11 to 2 a.m. on weekends.

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“I feel like I could close my eyes and run the store,” Khater said as he slices up a fresh-from-the-oven pie in his pizzeria, the last business left open in the once thriving strip mall.

In a few years, train tracks will run through this mall near the corner of Richmond and Cleary Avenue, which has been expropriated by the city as it prepares for Phase 2 of the LRT system. The mall will be the site of the train’s Cleary Station.

Tenants have known for a year that they’ll have to go, but it hasn’t made the goodbyes any easier.

“It’s sad,” Khater said. “I’ve watched everybody leaving and I’m used to seeing them every day.”

Khater and his wife Nadine, who works alongside him every day but goes home after the suppertime rush, are relocating to a new location at 160 Richmond Rd., near Kirkwood. They hope their faithful customers will follow them there, but for some, like those in the adjacent condo tower, The Continental, the move will be an inconvenience.