The third Cabot namesake was the Cabot Bakery. For a generation gone by the Cabot Bakery brings back memories of baked goods and its restaurant. And for some it’s the memory of tougher times when mothers earnestly stitched - not pigs ears into silk purses - but the bakery’s empty flour sacks into pillow cases and bed sheets.
The Cabot Bakery’s exact location is the newest vacant lot on the lower end of High Street. That vacant, lot along with the Co-op’s, has driven the vacancy count on High Street alone up to 10 (Irving, Royal Stores, land next to 48 High, Cash and Carry, Blackmore Printing, and Allen, Brown, and Taylor residences). And there is still yet one more vacancy to come.
Since the mid-1950s an astonishing number of houses, schools, churches and businesses have been demolished on Mill Road, Cabot Road, Church Road, High Street and Jones. The AND Company started the swinging of the wrecking ball and it hasn’t seen much idle time under the tutelage of our various town councils.
It will be good to see the decrepit looking High Street get a facelift. But it take more than cosmetics to bring people downtown once again. Downtown needs places of significance like the Cabot Bakery used to be.
The Cabot Bakery was a large building. As for the magic that went into its baking we saw little except in the summer. The sweltering heat meant the rear service door would be open and as young boys we would see racks of baked bread cooling off. It was a tempting smell to follow, but we never had the nerve to venture inside.
But thousands of people did go inside at the front entrance where the restaurant with its large plate glass windows was located. The restaurant, commonly called the Bake Shop, had rows of red upholstery booths with a large rounded one filling up the far left corner. Each booth had its own coat rack.
You also had the option to sit at the counter with its spin-around stools. At the stools you could see yourself and everyone else in the restaurant by looking straight ahead at the mirrored wall. Just in front of that mirrored wall were all the doodads for making some of the restaurant’s ice cream and soda treats.
Hot food was prepared in the kitchen which was through a door just beyond the right end of the mirrored wall. Another door, on the opposite wall, led to the washrooms and office. The area around the doors had a desk and chair and a cash register.
That cash register, as well as the restaurant, were under the firm control of the indomitable Sally Spicer. Adults may have called her Sally, but not us youngsters. It was Miss Spicer. And perhaps we even called her Mrs. Spicer.
Sally was a small woman, but her no nonsense approach made her a heavyweight. Sally kept everyone on their toes - waitresses and customers alike - making sure the Bake Shop ran smoothly. As long as you behaved yourself everything was fine.
As you got older Sally could warm to you with stories about customers. Once she told me about the renown Don Jamieson of St. John’s. He was in town in the early 1950s to broadcast hockey games between the Grand Falls Andcos and the visiting St. John’s Caps.
After one of the games he came into the Bake Shop exhausted from broadcasting. On that cold winter night, he trudged up front, lay on the red upholstered bench just in front of the counter, flung his arm across his head and affectionately said “Sally, get me a bowl of soup!”
Part two of “Three Cabots” will appear on Thursday, Sept. 2.
Andy Barker can be contacted at abdp9@hotmail.com.
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