From early jobs washing dishes to running a landmark downtown diner, Ernie Febbraro\u2019s life was defined by long hours and community ties, says son Chuck<\/p>\n
Saultites are mourning the passing of Ernie Febbraro, longtime owner and operator of Ernie\u2019s Coffee Shop.<\/p>\n
Febbraro died July 19.<\/a><\/p>\n He was 87 years old.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n \u201cMy 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,\u201d Chuck told SooToday.<\/p>\n Ernie was well-known and appreciated inside and outside the coffee shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe was outgoing. If you met him he’d shake your hand, give you a smile and the more he got to know you he\u2019d 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,\u201d Chuck recalled.<\/p>\n Hard work was Ernie\u2019s life.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter 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,\u201d Chuck said.<\/p>\n During that period, Ernie also worked at Mike’s Lunch baking pies and scrubbing floors at the Underpass Grill.<\/p>\n He eventually went into business and bought the Princess Sandwich Bar.<\/p>\n \u201cHe worked from seven in the morning until nine or ten at night,\u201d Chuck said.<\/p>\n Ernie sold that business and then opened Ernie\u2019s Coffee Shop at 13 Queen St. E. with his wife Judy in 1971.<\/p>\n He kept up his hardworking pace.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen 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\u2019d have a half a day off on Sunday and well, he just slept, you know?\u201d Chuck said.<\/p>\n Chuck began working with Ernie as a cook in 1976 and became the restaurant’s manager.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was sort of a running joke but the feeling was that the restaurant was our wives and our wives were our mistresses,\u201d Chuck said.<\/p>\n Gruelling work schedule aside, Ernie loved his work.<\/p>\n \u201cYou 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,\u201d Chuck said.<\/p>\n