Diana Sweets was a restaurant on St. Paul Street, the main street of St. Catharines. Our grandmother took us there for sundaes on a Saturday. The interior is Art Deco from the 1920's. It was a favourite spot for many decades, but eventually closed in the late 1990's. Benny Cooperman the detective in the Howard Engel novels would eat there.
The interior was stored in a Buffalo warehouse for a number of years. And by good fortune, the Harley-Davidson store owner bought it in 2008 and installed it in the store.
I went in yesterday to see this piece of St. Catharines history. I was not amongst my cohorts in the store - I immediately noticed the women with 'big hair' under backwards baseball caps. But I made my way to the important corner where coffee and espresso are available. It was enjoyable to see the booths and counter, along with the stained glass sign and the waitress uniforms.
The St. Catharines Standard article on the wall is here and a youtube video is here. The video that followed was St. Catharines 1954. The Hotel Dieu Hospital is in that video - I had captured the demolition earlier in the year. It is now a flat space, awaiting the start of a retirement complex.
The big news yesterday, though, was spotting a Bald Eagle in the trees on the Lake beside the restaurant, the Lakehouse.
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