Cosmos

Photo by Tara Botwinick

Oh, dear Cosmos…how we will miss you.

On cold, snowy nights your red and white sign shined like a beacon, offering warmth, comfort, and sustenance to late night snackers. Inside, the retro stars painted on those hallowed walls twinkled like old friends. Generations of SU students have called you their home away from home, with food Mom never would have made. There was no place finer for a dozen drunken partyers to split one single order of fries with gravy.

Alas…if those jukeboxes could only talk (or if they could only work), what tales they would tell. Your grill held the memories and gristle of the countless ham, egg and cheese sandwiches that have graced your contaminated cooktop, washed down with coffee that tasted like the dishwater that was only rumored to have been used to clean the dishes. Your sticky tables will always have a place in our hearts and a little skin from our elbows, even when they were swabbed with an ammonia-drenched rag that hadn’t been replaced since the Ernie Davis days. What fun it was to unbend every fork before it could be used to devour the culinary delights served on scratched plastic plates the color of faded manila envelopes! Your waitresses were among the best, always managing to bring everyone’s order out at a different time and never failing to forget the toast.

We hope you will be reunited with your beloved George, and may he once again toss those signature pizzas in your window. Cosmos…you weren’t perfect, but you were ours and we loved you. Without you, Marshall Street will never be the same.

May your grease trap run over, and may your honey buns always be toasted.

Cosmos, your absence will leave an empty place in our stomachs and in our hearts.

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