This Is Framingham

I’ve never been to this Dunkin Donuts but this is where the Athenian Restaurant used to be, a Greek place that my sister Elanie and I worked at while in college.  We both were going to Framingham State and both waiting tables at Coyote on Edgell Road.  I don’t know how or why we got involved with the Athenian but on the weekends they were open 24 hours and one summer we work the graveyard shift.  Often after a full night of working at Coyote, we’d change uniforms and head over to the Athenian from 11:30pm to 7am.  We were young and foolish and thought we could just do everything.
The late night Athenian crowd was different from the day time crowd.  A lot of late-nighters were left over regulars from the Copper Kettle, the previous dive establishment at that location.  I guess most people came here after the bars closed for the night, a lot were drunk or just odd with nowhere to go.  I remember some nights it became a downright zoo in there between 1-3am.  The only thing that kept us sane was Bruce, the only cook for these shifts.  I don’t know how he did it but we’d have a packed restaurant and somehow Bruce handled everything back there all by himself without once losing his cool.  I asked him once how he did it and he just shook his head and said “I don’t even know, I just close my eyes and hope everything gets on the right plate”.

Since it was just Bruce, Elaine and I, he would also have to act as security sometimes when a drunk someone found their drunk ex there and got too emotional or people locked themselves in the bathroom or people just plain being obnoxious.   I’d get this customer who yelled at me about the pancakes and said “I get the pancakes here every time and EVERY TIME they come out horrible!”  I suggested that maybe she’d like to get something else but every week she would get them and I’d cringe every time I saw her walk through the door.  The nicest people were the ones going to or coming from work, like the limo drivers or delivery guys.  We could actually have a good conversations with them and they tipped well too.

The place would empty out around 3:30 and everyone would leave just as fast as they came in.  After cleaning up and depending on what a rough night it was Elaine and I would sometimes fall sleep in a booth and Bruce would wake us up if people came in.  Just a few minutes nap in a booth was precious.  I remember one time being so tired that driving down Rt. 85 on the way home I swore I saw a giant white…thing, like some sort of creature, crossing the road.   I actually slowed down and tried to wake my sister, but she was too konked out to wake up.  I had never before and never since hallucinated but I’ll never forget how real that thing was and how important sleep is.

The Athenian was owned by a Greek couple that worked so much that I think they were a little out of it, just by the way the ran things there but I remember almost everything the wife showed us how to do was followed by her Greek accented voice telling us to “make it nice for the people”.  Cleaning menus, wiping tables, vacuuming, making coffee was all to “make it nice for the people”.   One night before the changing of the guards, we had to convince her to correct the spelling of the night’s special “BQQ” Burger.   After we stopped working there she would still call us like we never left and leave messages like “It’s Litza,  I need you to work tonight…” 
For years after that, the Athenian would sometimes come up in conversation and my sister and I would laugh and say “Is that place still open?”  It was turned into a Dunkin Donuts a few years ago and even though that place was insane in some ways, I think it is a shame to lose a local place like that (especially one open 24 hours) and have it replaced with something that is everywhere anyway.  Another piece of Framingham gone.