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Photo by Tony Caldwell / OTTwp

The owner of Bobby’s Table, a small family restaurant located on Montreal Road, always seems to be busy.

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On a recent Tuesday, his place is packed before 9 am. The only seats left are next to the cash register on raised bar stools.

The diner was born in 2009 from the ashes of the famed Nate’s Deli on Rideau Street, and has since become somewhat of a fixture in Vanier. It attracts customers from across the city and plays host to a group of regulars daily.

When he moved in nine years ago, LeBlanc had hoped the restaurant would do well. It was a way to keep his co-workers from Nate’s Deli employed after that business suddenly closed its doors.

“They closed. I went looking for a place and we found this on Montreal Road,” he said. “I moved everybody with me so nobody had to go look for a job. That’s how we started. All the staff came here.”

He said he has watched the corridor along Montreal Road change over the past decade. When he first moved in, he said, the neighbourhood was rough.