While it may seem silly to many, I’m feeling a little bit of a loss with the sudden news that the Grant Circle Friendly’s has closed. What may have helped would have been some notice….because, without a doubt, we would have gone just one last time.
What’s even sillier is that we rarely actually took our boys there….maybe ten times total in the eleven years we’ve been parents. Patty Melts have been replaced with sushi…..and fribbles with froyo….for better or for worse. I did, however, spend a lot of time there when I was younger. And those memories are pretty sweet.
Both sets of my grandparents lived within walking distance from Friendly’s and we went there often. With my mom’s mother, we went there for lunch. I remember well the different layout of the restaurant, the linoleum of the counter top, and the spinning stools. With my dad’s parents we picked up gallons of ice cream each and every time we slept over….after picking up pizza at Valentino’s.
Time at Friendly’s is as vivid a memory for me as the many St. Peter’s Fiestas and Horribles Parades of my youth, shopping at Empire, breakfast at Union Hill Coffee House, the drive-in movie theater, the little birds and toads at the Garden Patch, Italian cookies at the Piscitello residence, and the cheese board and piano man at Captain’s Courageous. Sigh.
I would have liked the opportunity to go one more time and talk to my boys about the memories of days gone by. I’m having trouble thinking of places that resonate so loudly with my childhood….that are still standing today.
What are some of your favorite Cape Ann memories?
Good Morning Gloucester 
My aunt, grandmother, and cousins lived on Washington St. After a two day drive with my parents and brother, from Selma, Alabama to Gloucester, we would all meet at Friendly’s for our first meal and ice cream. We also ate our last meal there before leaving Gloucester on our way home. My aunt and grandmother have since left this world, but my husband, dad, brother and I, have still kept the same tradition for the last three summers that we’ve been to Gloucester. Closing is sad to me also.
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I worked at Friendly’s through high school and that’s where my husband, Jim, and I met in 1970. Had I known it was closing we would have gone inside to say good-by.
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I had some really good French toast there a week ago.
Is a Burger King coming?
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