After 46 years, lunch counter's final day a 'sad' and 'lonesome' inevitability

ASHEVILLE - The Rite Aid lunch counter, a North Asheville icon of nearly 50 years, served its final customer Saturday, marking what one longtime regular deemed "the end of an era."

The breakfast and lunch crowd on the counter's last day in business was as robust as it ever was, perhaps more so given the occasion. Not one of the 22 high-top stools surrounding the L-shaped counter was left empty between diners, weary of bumping elbows with strangers.

In fact, parties were splitting up and filling in seats wherever they could find them. Kids who'd never eaten there sat next to and conversed with old-timers who'd been regulars at the counter for decades.

That's precisely what Cathy Thomas, who has been eating at the lunch counter since it opened in 1972, said she's going to miss about the place.

"This is the type of place where you got to know people," she said while waiting for a seat Saturday morning. "I love this cafe, and I hate seeing it go; I just hate it."

Thomas was surrounded by family as she ate her final plate of flapjacks at the counter. Her two children and five grandchildren joined her as she said farewell to the counter's longtime manager, Gnelle Israel, whom she'd befriended over the years.

Israel, who ran the restaurant for 46 years, said Saturday that she wasn't allowed to discuss the the restaurant's closing, per her manager's orders. She likely wouldn't have had time anyhow. She had hardly a moment's break from the hustle as her friends and loyal customers packed the counter to say goodbye.

The wait time for a seat seemed more fitting of a hip new brunch spot's first day in business than the last day of a lunch counter located in a drugstore in an old, nondescript shopping center. But Israel and the lunch counter she ran had a draw that's hard to understand these days.

More: John Boyle: Eckerd's in N. Asheville is the last of the lunch counters (1997)

More: Carole Currie: In North Asheville community gathers at Rite Aid for lunch (2016)

Donovan Baker was 6 years old when his grandmother first brought him to the lunch counter in the '80s. Once he was able to drive on his own, he kept returning because the food was good and inexpensive.

Now a traveling salesman, Baker still returns to the lunch counter as frequently as his work allows. He says people that he meets through work are always surprised to hear that he eats at a lunch counter, which they assume no longer exist anywhere, he said.

That's why he brought his 7-year-old daughter, Amanda, with him as often as he could, including on Saturday.

"I've been bringing her since she was old enough that I knew she wouldn't fall out off her chair. I knew this day was coming, and I wanted her to have some memory of this place."

As fast-food chains became increasingly common, lunch counters closed. The convenience of the drive-through trumped the communion of sitting at a counter and talking to strangers.

By 1997, the Rite Aid lunch counter — then the Eckerd Drug Store Coffee Shop — was only one of eight lunch counters left in Eckerd's 2,832 stores on the Atlantic Seaboard, the Citizen Times wrote in an article titled "Last of the Lunch Counters."

Later that year, when JC Penney merged with Eckerd, management closed the Merrimon Ave. lunch counter on Thursdays, a change that Jack Wilkins and other loyal patrons didn't like.

Wilkins wrote a letter to management requesting the restoration of the lunch counter's Monday-Saturday hours of operation.

"I told them I can buy dish detergent anywhere. This counter is what sets you apart from everybody else," Wilkins told the Citizen Times Saturday morning after eating at the counter for the last time.

"Look at it, it shouldn't even be closed now," he said pointing to the crowd of about 10 people waiting for a seat.

Wilkins and his wife, Janis, said they ate at the lunch counter at least once a week for 26 years, no fewer than 1,352 times in total, they said. Janis Wilkins said they even brought "friends from all over the world here," including a family they met in Japan who still asks to visit Israel every time they're in town.

More: With Millennials less likely to believe in God, churches work hard to buck trends

More: Henderson County aims to be first in North Carolina to have armed forces at schools

Though Jack Wilkins' late '90s letter was a success and the Thursday hours were restored, he's not planning on writing a letter to Walgreen's, owner of Rite Aid, this time. It won't do any good, given that the drugstore chain already has another branch right across the street, he said.

"These places are institutions, and it's really kinda sad to see them go," Wilkins said. "As you get older, you see times changing, and it gives you a lonesome feeling."