It might be Valentine’s Day on Monday, but Karen Brookes has something bigger to celebrate: her restaurant, Cosmo’s Diner, turns 27.
“The fact that we’re here, that we get to connect and get to see customers that are family, that are longtime friends—we add support, we add a happiness to their day,” Brookes says, in an interview with ThoroldToday. “It’s so touching to see how important that is to people and that’s what makes you keep doing it.”
Brookes was only 27 when she started Cosmo’s Diner on Front Street.
“I had just gone to university,” she remembers. “Very often it was comforting to find a diner to spend time with friends, to decompress. I had worked in restaurants throughout university, it was a natural progression. It was something that I felt really passionate about, having that space.”
Cosmo’s Diner is known for not only its hearty comfort food, but also for its ‘50s decor—a style choice partly inspired by Brookes' mother.
“Back in the day when you pumped gas, it would give you a little cassette of ‘50s music and she’d pop it into the car and play the music,” Brookes says. “Also, there’s a diner in London [ON] called Prince Albert’s Diner and that was one of my hangout places. It was a ‘50s diner. It was just this really positive feeling that I wanted to embody when you walk through the doors.”
Cosmo’s Diner had just celebrated its 25th anniversary when COVID-19 changed the world forever.
“Throughout this pandemic, it has been so hard. There’s been days where you are literally on your knees,” says Brookes. “The people of Niagara are absolutely what has gotten me through. You’re constantly renewing your passion for what you do. You’re inspired by the stories of people, you’re inspired by the fact that what you do does matter and I think that’s so important to all of us that work here.”
Brookes thinks the pandemic has been a learning experience.
“I think it has taught us lessons on how to get better,” she says. “It’s about customer service. How do we take the love of what we do and really put it in a box? We wrote messages on bags at the very beginning of the pandemic, we still do that. A diner really is about making connections with people.”
If it all were to end one day, Brookes is proud of what she has achieved.
“We’ve been really lucky,” she says. “We’ve had a really good business for 25 years before the pandemic so if it were not to work out you can’t feel sorry for yourself. We’ve had a lot of successes, we’ve had a lot of great moments in this restaurant. Elvises have shown up here, the prime minister has shown up, we’ve had some good stories.”
Brookes credits the diner's longevity to the restaurant’s strong sense of self.
“You have to really look at your business and look at why you’re doing it, bring it back to that starting point and remind yourself why you’re here,” says Brookes. ”I think restaurant people are a different breed. I just know that we’re the kind of people that won’t give up, and that’s what I think it comes down to: the tenacity.”
Even though Brookes doesn’t know what the next 27 years will hold, she is sure that Cosmo’s Diner will keep on playing an important role in the community.
“I’m really excited for the future right now,” Brookes says. ”One thing we have learned in the pandemic is that we’re not just a restaurant, we’re much more than that. And we have to consider our part and how we can make this community better. I think we can do so much more, we can make more connections with fellow business owners and lend support to each other and highlight issues that are important in the Niagara community and be a leader in that.”
