It’s the end of an era at Court Square Café.

On Tuesday, Dec. 23, Becky Spitzer will open the doors of the popular downtown restaurant for the last time.

“This was not an easy decision, but it was a necessary one.”

The restaurant itself is not closing for good – the new owners will reopen after the first of the year – but she will be moving on from the place she’s called home for a quarter century.

“I’m trying to keep everything low-key,” she said, “so it doesn’t get too emotional.”

There’s really no way around the emotions, though.

Ms. Becky has tried to stay busy and not think about leaving, but it’s hard not to think about walking through the doors and being greeted by, “Hey darlin’!” It’s hard not to think about the last time she’ll walk around, give out a hug, and ask how everyone’s doing.

That afternoon, for the last time, she’ll lock up and that’ll be that.

“It’ll hit me then,” she said. “I don’t talk about it … I’m going to miss everybody.”

From the beginning, her focus has been on the people. They’re her favorite part of the last 25 years.

“My husband and I, our premise was always good food, good service for a fair price. You can always go somewhere else and get a better cut of meat or more expensive or whatever, but good food, good service for a fair price. That’s what we’ve always done.”

Ms. Becky started her venture into being a restaurant owner in the mid-1990s. She had done taxes for H&R Block and licensing and titling for car dealerships, but when her husband’s health was declining she knew she had to be the breadwinner. She leaned on her experience working in her sister’s catfish restaurant and as a carhop at Shoney’s to make a living.

Though they lived in Shelby County, through relatives in Tipton County she found a space in downtown Brighton.

“I think [my husband] had come up here for some reason or another and he’d come home and he said, ‘You know that building?’”

And so, she opened a restaurant.

A couple of years later, in 1994, she was interested in a space in the former Paine Opera House on the court square in Covington. At the time, the square was not yet seen as the shopping destination it is today. In those days, the square was still dominated by courthouse traffic, meter maids still chalked tires, and few people believed a restaurant could draw consistent business.

“Everybody said, ‘You’re making a big mistake coming up here, nobody comes to the square …’ and I said, ‘If you give people a reason to come, they will come.’”

And she was right.

She opened the original Court Square Café on the north side of the square and ran it for a couple of years before selling it.

In the year 2000, though, she decided to reopen the restaurant in the former Ashford’s Meat Market at the corner of West Liberty Avenue and South Munford Street. She was friendly with the building’s owners, Larry and Carolyn Whaley, who owned an HVAC business a few doors down.

The building was not restaurant-ready and had to be built from the inside out.

“It’s basically built from scratch,” she said.

It took extensive work to bring it up to code – plumbing, firewalls, metal studs, and a commercial kitchen setup – but she opened and has become one of the longest continuously operating businesses in Covington.

As Ms. Becky prepares for retirement, it’s easy to talk about how the business was started and why. It’s easy to talk about what it took to remodel, how the floorpan was shaped by regulations. It’s easy to talk about the daily specials, the mouthwatering burgers, the chicken and dumplings that warms you up on a cold day, the homemade ranch dressing. What’s not as easy to get through is talking about the thing that mattered more than anything: the people.

Court Square Café is home for a lot of people, not just Ms. Becky.

Her children were raised in the restaurant.

Sherry Wells came to her 30 years ago looking for part-time work. She told Ms. Becky she could bake – “and the rest is history,” as Ms. Becky said.

Through Sherry, others have come to work at Court Square, like her daughters Angelica and Samantha.

Then there’s Sherry’s brother, Robert Hernandez, who first started working at the restaurant after he retired from the military.

Robert’s daughter Tina has worked at Court Square. His son, Joseph, has worked there for 14 years and fills drink orders.

Sherry’s nieces Rachel and Sara Jo, and Sara Jo’s daughter, Izzy, have all worked at Court Square as well.

Court Square is also home for the patrons who take the time to visit regularly. Many of them have become family to Ms. Becky and her team.

Just before the restaurant closed on a recent weekday, Ralph Cousar walked in with his granddaughter, Anna Reese, to pick up a take out order. Ms. Becky’s tone shifted into a more emotional one while they chatted, recalling how long they’ve known each other.

When she opened the Brighton restaurant, Ralph was working nearby at Brighton Bank. She’s watched him raise his sons, Justus and Carbo, and watched Anna Reese and her sister, Brinley, grow into young women. Brinley was recently married.

“I’ve watched these grandkids grow up,” she told Ralph before easing into a memory. “Let me tell you about these girls. They were little. So one night, one Friday night, they came in. It was two of them, and they’re real close to age. So they came in, and they had on little aprons, and they were being me. Was that not the sweetest thing ever? I loved it. That was so cute. Man, it was great.”

It’s not just the Cousars, there are so many families she’s watched grow during her time in business.

And, like any good business owner, she knows her customers. She remembers their orders.

She can tell you without hesitation that the late Duke Brasfield — from whom she purchased the restaurant’s chairs — ate a mesquite salad, small, with Italian dressing. Another attorney, Jeff Ward, eats the country fried steak with no gravy and Worcestershire sauce.

“Put it all over it.”

Like all good things, Ms. Becky’s time at Court Square will come to an end. She never intended to retire, but it’s time. The death of another regular customer, Gerald Stiles, in August was the catalyst.

“I really did feel like that was the thing,” Ms. Becky said quietly. “He’d come in every day at 1 o’clock. He didn’t come in on Fridays because it was so busy, and he did laundry and stuff on Fridays. We’d gossip and talk, and we just clicked. He was quite special to me.

I would have never retired as long as he was alive, but when he died, then I thought, ‘Yeah, it’s time.’”

Tuesday will be a hard day – not only for Ms. Becky, but also for the people who have walked through those doors for so many years.

“I want to tell everybody that I love them. I’ll always have great memories. It was a great ride.”