Tears seasoned the lunches at Bitar's Snack Shop on Friday.
Regulars ate their last meals before hugging Tillie Stelmach, whose work the last four decades has the been the backbone for the restaurant, according to the owner's son.
"If business was like this every day, we wouldn't be closing," Keith Bitar said after the lunch crowd finally trickled out.
But crowds like Friday's were the aberration in the past few years.
Bitar attributes that to New Kensington's gradual decline, which brought fewer new customers down Third Avenue. It also kept fewer workers from coming in for lunch as businesses left -- office workers such as Carol Corchia, who came at least four times a week with two co-workers.
For someone like Corchia, who has spent her life in New Kensington, Bitar's has been entrenched in the business and social community.
"Growing up in New Kensington and seeing all of the changes, Bitar's has been the constant," she said.
Corchia, Adele Corbin and co-worker Pat Farrar are searching for a new lunch spot. They've exchanged contact information with other Bitar's regulars in hopes of keeping some semblance of their lunch routine and community.
The ladies will miss Stelmach's salad dressing. She only makes one.
"If you ask for Italian, you'll get lemon and oil," Corbin said. "If you ask for Ranch, you'll get lemon and oil. If you ask for lemon and oil anywhere else, you can't get it like Tillie makes it."
Stelmach's routine of arriving at 3:30 a.m. to prepare food for breakfast has been the culmination of her decades of increasing involvement in the restaurant.
"They needed me to work for a weekend when some people were out of town," she said. "That was 39 years ago."
Stelmach, who was raised in New Kensington and now lives in Lower Burrell, said she felt the job gave her a shot at longevity.
"Anybody who worked here did it until their 80s or 90s, so I figured I would make it that long," she said.
The restaurant's founder, Henry "Shuff" Bitar, is now 91. And although he still balanced the business' accounting, he has been in bad physical health and now lives in The Willows of Presbyterian SeniorCare in Oakmont.
He opened the shop in 1949 while working in the steel mills to make money for his children's education. He has made trips to work the cash register as recently as June, for his birthday.
Keith Bitar came to work at the shop about three years ago, after retiring from teaching social studies in the New Kensington-Arnold School District. He has filled in wherever Stelmach has needed him since then.
"I was born a few months after this place opened," he said. "I grew up in the shop, but never really worked here until a few years ago. My brother and sister worked here, though."
His late mother, Rose Marie, made Bitar's locally-renowned Syrian bread in the family home in New Kensington. As demand increased, the family went to mass production, but Keith Bitar said it's one step away from homemade.
"It's still the same recipe, same style," he said.
The family will keep its options open with the building, and will continue selling bread.
Bitar sees little hope, though, for consistent clientele that will sustain the business as taxes, and insurance, supply and utility costs rise.
"There used to be a bowling alley that would keep this place filled with league players, and Alcoa was right nearby," he said. "Those aren't here anymore, and that's what we needed. The business really had been going down since the 1970s."
That is still a surprise to diners such as Pat Krotzer, a Vandergrift resident who works nearby and phoned her orders in so she could make the most of her half-hour lunch break. She's unsure she'll ever find a place to replicate her long history with Bitar's.
"It was like eating at your mother's house," she said. "You knew them well enough that if you needed more coffee, you could just pour it yourself."
