I drove by this place yesterday, but couldn’t stop to take a photo. I looked it up on Google Maps. It’s clearly owned by a different owner now, but at the time, we were looking for a place to eat on the way to Sunday River, ME. We saw the sign advertising lunch, and we thought it was sketchy, given that it was a gas station. Mark went in to check it out.  A few minutes later, despite all I believed I knew about his standards for restaurants, he was at the door waving us in. Entering the building, we quickly moved through the convenience store part of the shop and saw a diner kitchen installed along the sidewall. We sat at one of the 4 empty diner tables between the aisles and the “kitchen.” By that I mean that there were only four tables total, not just four empty tables. We were the only customers. Our table was along the backside of the snack rack and we had a good view of the engine fluids aisle.

The owner/waiter/cook/clerk/gas-station-attendant who took our order had a Yankees hat on the wall, and Mark asked him how he became a Yankees fan all the way up here in Maine. He was a stocky, tall, energetic gray-haired man who looked to be in his late 50s or early 60s and he was the only other person in the building. He said he used to be a New Yorker and moved to Maine years ago. He took our order, cooked, we ate, nothing remarkable there. But when we went to pay, we took our checks to a register at a counter that had a variety of granite slabs strewn about.

While I was the first at the register, the owner/waiter/cook/clerk/gas station attendant punched up a different price than mine had cost. I looked to the dry erase board where the specials were listed and it had since been erased. I said, “That’s not what mine cost, mine was only $11.95, it said so on that board before.” He responded, “Calm down. You New Yorkers, always thinking someone is trying to screw you. I’m not ringing you up yet!” And gestured to one of the others. After we all settled up, I motioned to what I thought were granite samples he was considering, “Are you having some work done?”  “No,” he said, “I sell and install granite, those are my products.”

I’ll never forget that owner/waiter/cook/clerk/gas-station-attendant/granite salesman. He made what could have been an otherwise unremarkable experience worth remembering.