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Mark van Nierop was a good listener, and a great cook, eager to show off his creations: Butter-seared scallops, a chicken dish, some kind of seafood concoction. When he popped into Simon Says, the pub beneath the apartment he shared with his girlfriend in the Nackawic Shopping Mall, in Nackawic N.B., he often brought along a plate of food, instead of his problems.

The man with the Dutch accent always said hello and how are you to those he knew, and those he had just met. He would elbow up to the bar, deliver a plate and order a Molson Canadian — never drinking more than two — and always ask the bar staff about their day.

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He was a good listener, not some sad case with a tale of woe to unload on the bartender, and when he ducked outside for a cigarette — Peter Jackson Mellow was his brand — you could count on finding him out front saying hello, and how are you, to someone new.

“I could say he was my friend,” says Michael Simon, the bar owner. “We were supposed to go into business together as partners, 50/50. I was going to run the bar and he was going to run the restaurant.