From early jobs washing dishes to running a landmark downtown diner, Ernie Febbraro’s life was defined by long hours and community ties, says son Chuck
Saultites are mourning the passing of Ernie Febbraro, longtime owner and operator of Ernie’s Coffee Shop.
He was 87 years old.
Son Chuck Febbraro, who worked with his father for over 40 years, said he, his mother Judy, wife Donna and other family members are sensing the void left by Ernie’s passing.
“My parents lived with us. We travelled together, we worked together, we had meals together. We lived in the same house for the last 40 years,” Chuck told SooToday.
Ernie was well-known and appreciated inside and outside the coffee shop.
“He was outgoing. If you met him he’d shake your hand, give you a smile and the more he got to know you he’d tell you a few stories. He was good at chatting at the events going on around town and he was a very big hockey fan. He and I were Greyhound fans for years. We had season tickets,” Chuck recalled.
Hard work was Ernie’s life.
“After he moved to Canada from Italy when he was nine, he started working when he was 11, washing dishes standing on two Coke boxes in the Princess Sandwich Bar on Gore Street,” Chuck said.
During that period, Ernie also worked at Mike’s Lunch baking pies and scrubbing floors at the Underpass Grill.
He eventually went into business and bought the Princess Sandwich Bar.
“He worked from seven in the morning until nine or ten at night,” Chuck said.
Ernie sold that business and then opened Ernie’s Coffee Shop at 13 Queen St. E. with his wife Judy in 1971.
He kept up his hardworking pace.
“When I got up in the morning, he was already gone and when I went to bed at night, even when I got older, he was still at work. He’d have a half a day off on Sunday and well, he just slept, you know?” Chuck said.
Chuck began working with Ernie as a cook in 1976 and became the restaurant’s manager.
“It was sort of a running joke but the feeling was that the restaurant was our wives and our wives were our mistresses,” Chuck said.
Gruelling work schedule aside, Ernie loved his work.
“You have to love it in order to get anywhere with it. I would say he loved it up until about a year before he put it up for sale in 2017,” Chuck said.
Ernie’s Coffee Shop was sold to a new owner in 2020 and both Ernie and Chuck went into retirement.
The diner was a local favourite, known for its hearty breakfast, lunch and dinner menu.
That menu included the extraordinary Ernie Burger.
“There used to be a gym across the street in the 1980s. Guys who were training were coming in and wanting double patty burgers and bacon, wanting a lot of protein because they were beefing up,” Chuck said.
That led Ernie to add the huge burger to his menu.
“It was probably the first big burger in the Sault. It was basically an extra large bacon cheeseburger, loaded. It weighed two and a half pounds and the patty itself was a full pound of meat once it was cooked.”
Ernie’s Coffee Shop retained the feel of an old fashioned diner, with a definite sense of history in the air.
Family photos were mounted on the restaurant’s walls, along with photos of Algoma Steel in its glory days and the Agawa Canyon tour train.
Tony Esposito’s photo was on the diner’s wall while brother Phil’s photo was in the coffee shop’s office.
“We saw a lot of good hockey teams in there. We fed everybody from Gretzky to the Esposito brothers, a lot of sports celebrities,” Chuck said.
Ernie also designed the iconic Ernie’s Coffee Shop sign that is now on permanent display at the Sault Ste. Marie Museum.
“Dad tried not to show it but he was proud of that,” Chuck said.
Word of Ernie’s Coffee Shop caught the attention of the television world.
The diner became the subject of a segment on Food Network Canada’s You Gotta Eat Here! in 2016.
Chuck said Ernie was reluctant at first to be in the TV spotlight.
“He said ‘no, it’s not going to happen. I don’t want them in my kitchen.’”
“He didn’t feel it was right. He felt it would be giving away restaurant secrets so it actually took us a couple of days to convince him. I told him ‘this is an honour’ and so Ernie’s became Food Network chefs.”
Chuck said Ernie missed the business, his staff and customers and his work touched more than one generation of Saultites.
“Customers that followed dad from the Princess Sandwich Bar to Ernie’s Coffee Shop are now in their 80s and 90s,” Chuck said.
“They brought their kids and their grandkids into Ernie’s. We’ve seen so many families. They all became a part of Ernie’s family.”
Chuck said he and his family, along with many locals, will cherish Ernie’s memory.
“I was proud to follow in his footsteps and work at Ernie’s. The coffee shop is my father’s legacy and it still is to this day. He left his imprint on everyone that he came across.”