Coca-Cola was his lucky drink, his jokes were plentiful and cheerfully told, and food — after his wife — was his great love.

It was the food and the old-school diner feel, neither of which ever changed over the decades even as the city developed around them, which brought people to the beloved Golden Star restaurant in Thornhill.

It was Frank Doria that made them come back.

“Have a free straw,” he would tell customers with a laugh as they sat down.

“Don’t forget to come back,” he would say to each and every one as they left.

Even after passing the reins to his sons, Doria was a mainstay at the diner where friends and long-time customers have stopped by to offer their condolences to his children and grandchildren, several of whom still work there.

He died peacefully on April 6, six days after his 94th birthday and two years after his beloved wife Margaret.

“He was the most gentle, nicest person in the world,” said his grandson, Justin Doria, who grew up working at Golden Star.

As a teenager clearing tables, Justin would bring Doria a coffee and be tipped five bucks. “He was very caring and giving, very understanding. This quiet, soft-spoken guy who loved the restaurant,” he said.

Born March 31, 1920 in Gagliato in southern Italy, Doria came to Canada as a teenager, hoping to build a better life for himself. It was while working at a mom-and-pop soda shop in South Porcupine in northern Ontario in 1942, that he met his wife Margaret.

“She came in and he bought her a Coke and that was basically it,” Justin said.

Cokes became auspicious and they married two years later. After stints working for CP Rail and Shopsy’s, Doria and Margaret moved to Thornhill, where they opened the Golden Star drive-in restaurant in 1965.

At the time it was a gamble, but Doria wasn’t one to shy away from hard work and the juicy, homemade burgers won people over.

“There wasn’t a single person who didn’t like him,” said his son Joe, who took over the business with his brother Frank Jr. “He tried to turn everything into a funny thing. That was his really big advantage over people, you couldn’t get him aggravated.”

Doria died a month before Golden Star was to celebrate its 50th anniversary, but Justin says the family is thankful he lived to see its fifth decade and Joe says he’s carrying on the little jokes family and customers became so fond of.

“I follow in his footsteps,” he said. “He did the little jokes in his own way at the restaurant and I do it too in my own little way.”

Doria leaves behind his four children Joe, Mary, Frank Jr. and Yolanda, his 10 grandchildren and his four great-grandchildren, for whom cokes are still considered lucky.

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