08/13/2020
As some of you may already know, Ben's Lunch Room closed in December of last year.
Two weeks ago, we received word that we could go in and retrieve all of our belongings. We moved everything into the old Sticklen building until a new location could be found to set up shop.
In the early morning hours of August 9 a fire swept through downtown Chatham, destroying several buildings including the Vogue Theatre. One of these buildings was the former Sticklen building which had all of Bens memorabilia stored (83 years of history). We had just put it in the building a couple of weeks ago. Everything was lost in the fire.
This included everything that was in the store. The red counter top, 11stools (which I bought in 1966), all of the pictures on the walls and on the shelves, paperwork, all of my stock and equipment (stove, copper bum steamer, freezer, two coolers that I just bought last summer, our old refurbished milk machine). We even lost the old cash register that Ben use to use when he opened back in 1937 as well as the old set of scales by the door that everyone seemed to enjoy. Countless other things from Ben's history were stored there. We also lost a lot of old pop bottles that dated back to the early 1900's and a lot of memorabilia that was given to us from many people over many generations who came through our doors.
We are still in a bit of shock. I'm not sure what we will be doing from here on in but I will let everyone know as soon as I figure all this out.
Mike O'R.
