Such sweet sorrow
Manville eatery, a neighborhood staple, to close after almost 60 years of family, friends and food
MANVILLE — In this compact village of mill-era row houses and tenements at the northernmost edge of Lincoln, Lil & Gene’s Restaurant has been a neighborhood tradition for nearly 60 years – a place to shake off the morning drowsies with a fresh cup of coffee and a plate of eggs, swap gossip and run into friends.
For Corey Dumas, it’s been much more.
The third-generation owner-operator of the quaint breakfast spot, Dumas, 43, has been working here since he was 6-years old, when he first started helping clear tables for his father, Gerard Dumas. His sister Melanie Mendall has worked here almost as long, and her children help out, too. His wife, Jillian, is a dental hygienist, but she still pitches in on weekends.
“It’s a way of life,” says Dumas. “Practically every member of my family has worked here at one time or another. Even Tommy Perron – we’re not related – he’s been here since he was 13. He’s 30 now. He’s become like my little brother.”
And it’s a way of life that’s run its course. After careful consideration, Dumas said he’s decided that Lil & Gene’s will
open its doors for the last time on Dec. 23 – long enough to get the holiday pork pies out the door one more time.
The decision was excruciatingly difficult, says Dumas. Knowing that closing the restaurant would dramatically affect the lives of people he holds dearest, he’d been rolling the decision over in his head time and time again for the last few years.
Despite a noticeable thinning out of village life over the years and increased competition from drive-through coffee shops and fast-food restaurants, there’s no doubt that Lil & Gene’s could have continued to remain sustainable, says Dumas.
“Thank God we’ve been blessed with the clientele that still comes in the door,” he said. “It has nothing to do with money.”
What it had to do with is how Dumas wants to earn a living in the future. He has a few avenues of possible exploration – nothing carved in stone. But one thing he’s certain of is that he wants to try his hand at something other than the restaurant business.
He still young enough to break out and try something new, says Dumas. The father of four daughters between the ages of 7 and 13, Dumas doesn’t want to be looking back years from now wondering what might have been.
“Woulda, shoulda, coulda – I just didn’t want that,” says Dumas, wearing a white chef’s apron and a black trucker cap with the Lil & Gene’s logo emblazoned above the visor.
Founded by his late grandparents, Lillian and Eugene Dumas – residents of Manville most of their lives – the restaurant is located at of 29 Winter St., on the ground floor of three-story house. The restaurant moved here around 1965 from its original location on Fall Street, about a hundred yards away. The structure no longer exists – it’s a parking lot now.
Family lore pegs the founding of the restaurant to 1961 – though it could have been earlier – at least if the chroniclers of Eugene’s obituary were correct. According to that venerable document, fetched from the archives of The Call, the birth year for Lil & Gene’s was 1959 – and it wasn’t the elder Dumas’ only job. He continued to work in a Woonsocket textile mill until retiring as a foreman in 1977.
Corey says his father Gerard, now 74, ran the restaurant for many years before he turned it over to him over 15 years ago. His uncle, Ronald Dumas, was also a veteran of Lil & Genes before launching another popular northern Rhode Island eatery, the fittingly named “Uncle Ronnie’s” in Burrillville.
If Lil & Gene’s is part of the warp and weave of village life – so are the Dumases. Corey Dumas has never lived more than a few blocks from the restaurant, and his sister Melanie lives in one of the apartments upstairs.
“This whole experience has been surreal,” said Dumas, sitting at a table a few feet from the entryway. “More than half the people I know in my life have walked through that door.”
The hardest part of closing is knowing how dramatically the decision will affect other members of his family. The writing may have already been on the wall, but it came into sharp focus on Good Fri- day – the busiest Friday of the year – when a broken fryolator valve caused a fire in the kitchen. The restaurant had been doing Friday night fish dinners for years, but the episode marked a permanent suspension of the tradition and also, in hindsight, what looks very much like the beginning of the pre-closure rollback of operations.
“It’s a tough decision when you’re attached to the people emotionally,” he says.
Mendall – Dumas’ sister – is already beginning to grieve.
“This is my dream job,” she said, blinking back tears. “Hopefully I’m going to find another one just like it.”
Like her brother, Mendall has worked in the restaurant since she was a kid. “I waitressed my first table when I was 11-years old,” she said.
Mendall is sympathetic to her brother’s dilemma and supports his decision, but she can’t help getting upset about leaving the restaurant behind and starting all over again.
Though she’s officially retired, Corey’s mother, Patsy Dumas, still shows up on a regular basis to run and an errand or lend a hand where one is needed. She seems philosophical about the end of Lil & Genes.
“It’s bittersweet,” she said. “It’s gotta end sometime.”
Since making the announcement about a week ago – on Facebook – that Lil & Gene’s would close for good two days before Christmas, regular patrons have been coming in to make sure they say their farewells and wish him luck.
“We’ll miss them,” says Del Griffin, who’s lived in Manville with her husband, Ronald, since 1968. It’s a place where villagers and others stop for the social banter as much as the tasty food. “It’s part of the fabric of the village,” she says.
“It’s an institution,” adds Griffin’s friend, Dave Blanchette, of nearby Cumberland.
Dumas says the main reason he pushed off the closing date to the last week of the year was to make sure he can still follow through, one last time, with one of his customers’ favorite traditions – holiday pork pies. Each one weighs about 3.5 pounds – before the the top layer of pastry goes on.
Nearly 400 of them will go out the door for Thanksgiving and Christmas – many to families of French-Canadian descent, for whom the meat pie, aka tourtiere, is a ethnic mainstay around the holidays. This year, the holiday cheer will be mixed with a tinge of sadness as he preps the pies for the last time.
“You do something all your life, it’s a big change,” says Dumas. “As scared as I am, I’m also excited.”