| Steve Blow: Forney faces facts: Mary's is closing 12/22/2000 By / The Dallas Morning News The sign in the window says "Gossett's Kountry Kitchen" ("Good food – Come on in").
But it's a measure of the place that almost everyone around Forney refers to it as simply "Mary's."
Mary Gossett's no-frills, good-eats cafe sits on Forney's Main Street. It's next door to the State Farm office and across the street from Farmers National Bank.
And it's no exaggeration to say that Mary's is the social center of Forney, a small town out on the eastern edge of the Dallas sprawl. For 30 years Mary has been a fixture in town.
So it's with a mixture of dread and disbelief that people face the bitter truth: Mary's is closing. Saturday is its final day.
"I'm tired," Mary said this week, with no hint of apology. She gave it the Texas pronunciation. "Tired" – rhymes with "hired" and "fired" and "lard."
"The nose has been stuck to the grindstone," she said.
'It's a tragedy'
But no explanation will satisfy her faithful customers. "It's a tragedy that Mary is closing up," 74-year-old Dan Taylor said, clearly meaning every word.
"I don't think she has given enough thought to what her closing will mean to the city of Forney," he said.
Mr. Taylor was sitting around a table with four other of Mary's "regulars." And they weren't a bit comforted that an Italian restaurant owner has bought the place.
In fact, a big banner has been hanging in Mary's the last few days: "Eddie's Italian Restaurant – Original Napoli's II from Garland – Coming Soon."
"We're going to give the place a chance and see how they cook chicken-fried steak," town dentist Tom Cunningham said. "But I don't know. ..."
Then he turned to Mr. Taylor. "Dan, you ever hear of I-talian chicken-fried steak?"
Mr. Taylor solemnly shook his head.
"Me neither," Dr. Cunningham said.
But Mary, 61, is a plainspoken sort. And she's not about to be stampeded into staying.
"Aw, they think the world has come to an end," she laughed. "They're just mad because this is the place to see and be seen. Now they don't know where to be seen."
Mary started working at a cafe in Lehigh, Okla., when she was 15. "It was kind of like a restaurant/beer-joint combination," she said. "I've never had a job out of a cafe."
She spent most of the 1960s working at Bob White's Barbecue restaurant in East Dallas. When the place burned in 1970, she was left in a pickle during the rebuilding.
To help her, Mr. White co-signed on a $1,200 bank loan, and Mary bought the tiny Rabbit Hut cafe in Forney. "It had six booths," she said.
Cast of characters
Thirty years and several locations later, Mary presides over a cast of characters that could fill a novel.
In fact, her tall, stone-silent dishwasher, 62-year-old Lloyd Hill, has written a novel. But it's not about Forney. It was based on his travels in Brazil.
The Village of Bom Jesus is out of print now, but a reviewer for this very newspaper called it "a wonderful book."
And then there's waitress Fern Brooks. She's been around Forney forever, and she knows everyone and everything.
Regular customer (and rodeo announcer) James Jennings teased her, "When were you a majorette here, Fern?"
"'51-'52, '52-'53," she shot back. Then she slapped him across the shoulder. "And you don't have to tell everything you know."
Customers range from real cowboys to our former governor, Bill Clements, who owns a ranch over the way.
These have been especially heady days in the cafe. As everyone knows, the Forney Jackrabbits play for the state 3A football championship tonight at Texas Stadium.
But win or lose, a sense of doom will hang over Gossett's Kountry Kitchen on Saturday.
"Times are a-changin'," Dr. Cunningham sighed.
"A local tragedy," Mr. Taylor agreed.
Steve Blow can be reached at 214-977-8374 or at .
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