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Last Day for an Empire in Maine

March 01, 2010 - SKOWHEGAN -- From a counter stool Sunday afternoon at the Empire Grill, where actor Dennis Farina arm-wrestled Ed Harris in the 2005 HBO movie "Empire Falls," it seemed like business as usual.


The dishwasher brought fresh silverware; the waitress poured coffee refills and "Take It Easy" by The Eagles played from speakers somewhere off camera.


But the Art Deco-style restaurant was no longer a movie set and it wasn't business as usual Sunday.


Empire Grill was closing.


"It's like putting down your pet," co-owner Tom Miller said from across the counter. "He looks fine, but you're in denial -- you put if off and you put it off and finally one day you look and the dog is not getting up, and what do you do?"


Miller and his business partner Kerry Pomelow said the declining economy and energy costs to run a 70-seat restaurant became too much for them.


They said "Empire Falls" producers did a great job making the former pizza joint into a vintage Maine diner, but actually operating it as a business was not so easy.


The final meal was served at about 3 p.m. Sunday, and it was a sad moment for the many patrons who filled the eatery to say good-bye.


Playing cards at a window booth with her 11-year-old son Matthew, Paula Berry, of Skowhegan, said she will miss Empire Grill.


"We're having our last meal here," Berry said. "Kerry has been my best friend for 11 years; I was here when they opened and this has kind of been a second home for me.


"I was sad on the way over here. I think a lot of people this summer are going to be devastated when they come and see it's closed. Those people who come up in the summertime are going to miss it."


The restaurant was renovated in 2003 as the centerpiece for the Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries "Empire Falls." The film, based on Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, featured Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ed Harris and Helen Hunt.


Miller, 55, of East Madison, and Pomelow, 43, of Skowhegan, took over the restaurant in March 2007. They do not own the building, but do own the trademark Empire Grill name with the iconic Indian head logo.


Paul Lebrun, of East Madison, worked on his laptop computer from his favorite booth Sunday afternoon, waiting for the daily special -- rib-eye steak and fries.


"I came down because it's the last day," Lebrun said. "It's my usual spot for breakfast; after work, to grab a quick piece of pie or a coffee. I just love the conversation -- a perch on the road -- this is where I come to kind of partake of Skowhegan."


Lebrun, a computer-art teacher at Skowhegan Area High School, acknowledged the sadness of the day.


"It's a big loss; there's this certain kind of going-down-the-drain feeling -- my local store's going out of business, too," he said of the Mill Pond General Store near his home, which closed on Saturday after 100 years in business. "There's never been a bigger gap-tooth moment that I can remember. It is kind of like a funeral."


Skowhegan Selectwoman Betty Austin came in for the last day at Empire Grill with her mother Pearl LeBlanc. She said she has fond memories of Friday night dinners with her friends -- a former state representative, a former newspaper reporter and other area women.


"I'm really very sad because I like this restaurant, I love this restaurant," she said. "I loved when we ladies would come down and sit in the front booth there and just hang out and talk and yap -- it was like a nice meeting place.


"As a selectman, I don't want to see any places empty downtown; I want us to grow. That's what our town needs, to encourage business people and grow."


Pomelow shared the sentiment.


"It's a good-bye today; a sad good-bye," she said. "It's been a long week of saying good-bye to people."


And as perhaps an omen of the closing to come, Pomelow said high winds on Thursday night blew the stylish "Empire Grill" and "Good Food" signs -- each of them 10 feet long -- off the building and on to the wet parking lot.


"Those signs have been here for seven years, and those high winds knocked those signs off the side of the building," she said. "People thought we were dismantling, but it was the high winds."

by Doug Harlow, March 1, 2010, Morning Sentinel

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