Trouble at the Melrose Diner

November 22, 1990. It was the worst possible time for disaster to strike. The day before Thanksgiving: D-Day, when you run a diner with a bakery attached to it.

All day long we'd been helping take orders for cakes and pies, helping out in the kitchen and otherwise dealing with the hectic rush that any good neighborhood restaurant and bakery gets during the holidays.

Not that the Melrose was just another neighborhood restaurant. Ask anyone in south Philly, and they'll tell you the Melrose is special. A legend, really. Not because we have the best food around—though I like to think we do—but because of our attitude.

My dad, Dick, started the Melrose in the 30s, soon after he arrived in America, fleeing Hitler's Germany. Like countless immigrants before him, Dad was short on money and long on dreams.

He wanted to start a diner that would reflect the Old World values he'd grown up with. In particular, one that followed the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Dad lived by those words, personally and professionally.

From the day he opened it—in an abandoned diner that no one else wanted to touch—the Melrose was special. In a time when decent working conditions were not exactly at the top of most restaurant owners' lists, Dad wanted to provide a genuinely good environment for his employees. He even supplied his waitresses with orthopedic shoes!

In the early 50s, when Dad got the chance to build a brand-new diner a block away, he took pains to design a space where the staff would be as comfortable as the clients.

He installed central AC in the dining area…and piped it into the kitchen and bakery as well. What was good for people, Dad learned, was good for business.

Ever since 1973, when I came aboard full-time, I'd done my best to keep the Melrose running with those same values. We developed an Employee Assistance Plan that included psychological counseling programs.

When our head baker came down with an allergy to, of all things, flour, we created a special elevated area where he could still decorate the cakes and supervise the baking without coming into direct contact with sacks of raw flour.

But of late, the Melrose had been a struggle. Running a restaurant where the staff's satisfaction is just as important as the customers is not always the most practical business model.

It seemed like each new month brought with it some new expense, some incentive to cut corners and put the Golden Rule on the shelf.

"Give it up, Rich," one of my friends told me. "Your dad was a great guy, but you can't run a business these days thinking like he did."

I found I was working harder, staying later and worrying more. That Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, I got home at 11:00, grabbed a quick shower and was out cold by 11:30.

The phone by my bed woke me two hours later. It was Paul Tierney, the Melrose's general manager. His voice was grim. "Richard, a water main broke. The entire basement is full of water. The power's out. We're completely shut down." This will kill us, I thought. I staggered out of bed and put on some warm clothes.