Aunt Lucy's - 237 W Wantage Street
Aunt Lucy’s is patronized predominantly by working class people for breakfast and lunch and single young professional types (men mostly) for the early dinner. The customers are loyal to a fault. The first diner in New Jerusalem to attempt to attract female customers, Aunt Lucy’s advertises this fact by setting a baby carriage by the main door during business hours.
Stools line the long, curving counter of the diner where fried chicken or boiled beef, gravy, green beans, and mounds of mashed potatoes are served on heavy white crockery. The food is fast, filling, and hot. The fresh baked pies are second to none and one of the main draws. Tables line one wall, but there is service only at the counter. Lunch without pie costs 55 cents. Open 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday-Friday.
Aunt Lucy’s is also the diner frequented by the staff of the New Jerusalem Advertiser, especially reporter Roberta Henry. The table farthest from the door is the de facto second office of the Advertiser. Confidential sources might be met elsewhere, but having a public chat with Roberta at a table at Aunt Lucy’s is a quick way to get people talking in New Jerusalem.
Lucille Carney, for whom the restaurant is named, operated a night lunch wagon at the corner of West Wantage and Brown streets for many years. Based on that success, the family invested in a small Worcester Lunch Car Company diner in 1912 featuring her name and recipes. That initial success led to the purchase of a larger diner in 1924, which operates under the same name to this day.
Aunt Lucy passed away long ago, and the current owner is her great niece and namesake, Lucille Fowler. Lucy is an attractive 30-year-old with deep auburn hair who does her best to keep what she thinks of as the family business afloat in a quickly changing world. Only a handful of trusted friends know that Lucy is in a tempestuous on-again, off-again relationship with Talia Fenner, owner and operator of Fenner's Road House just outside of town.
The menu is a tour of traditional New England cuisine; the beef stew remains tender and delicious, and Lucy’s original recipe for mashed potatoes (the secret is chicken stock simmered with mushrooms) is often copied but not surpassed.
Aunty Lucy’s has an exclusive deal with Taranowski's Bakery to provide rolls, buns, and sandwich bread to the diner, but a recent dispute over prices has strained that relationship, regrettably.
A few months ago the diner installed a soda fountain — a first outside of Marsh's Confectionery or Woolworths — but they only serve Clicquot sodas thanks to a 2-year contract Lucy agreed to. A stand-up Clicquot Eskimo in the front window makes sure that passersby know what is on tap, so to speak.
Table cloths, floral curtains, and flowers at every table lend the place a certain air of propriety, despite the lack of table service and general clamor during busy hours. A large (albeit inexpertly painted) portrait of the late Lucille Carney hangs at one end of the diner by the restroom doors. Customers who comment upon it in any manner aside from complimentary will raise the ire of the staff, particularly the members of the Carney and Fowler family, as the portrait was painted by Lucille Fowler.
Lucy's cat Mac (Macaroni) often travels to work with her and sometimes even gets taken out to the Roadhouse when the lovers plan to have a weekend alone. Mac is an orange colored Domestic Shorthair who is a completely practical working class cat with little patience for wild tales or panicked proclamations, but he is more open minded about the different ways that humans love each other than some others might be.
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