You’ve undoubtedly heard the sad news that the Arby’s on East Broadway in Eugene has closed. So what, you ask? Well, for starters the office in which I work is located almost directly across the street. However, we (that is, me and my co-workers Tim and Duane) did not eat there all that often — Tim finds their “meat products” disgusting, and I don’t think Duane is a big fan either, but frankly, I don’t really mind them! — but we would occasionally partake of their salads and deli-style sandwiches. Our affection for Arby’s runs deeper than a quick lunch, however. There’s the running gag with a co-worker back in New York where I enrolled him in a fake “Arby’s sandwich of the month club” complete with promotional material and two vacuum-packed Arby’s Melt sandiwches! There’s the old-fashioned Arby’s sign that the restaurant has held on to for something like 35 years. And there’s the fact that Arby’s is in our line of sight to the new federal courthouse that is being constructed a block north of the Arby’s building.

It’s the latter that is actually responsible for this Arby’s having to shut down. The owner lost his lease on the land, and the former restaurant — along with several other buildings on the same block — will undoubtedly be torn down in the coming months to make way for something deemed more suitable to stand across the street from a nearly $100 million dollar courthouse! Progress….

So last week, as we watched from Tim and Duane’s office, the old Arby’s sign was taken down and loaded onto a flatbed truck. I decided to walk over and snap some souvenir photos with my camera phone before it disappeared forever. As I did so, the owner — one Doug McConnell — approached, curious to know why I was taking pictures of his sign. He was very friendly, and we struck up a short conversation. When I asked him what was going to happen to the sign, he said he was going to put it in storage for now — hard to let go after 35 years of business! I was struck by his sadness at losing such an important part of his life, and it made me think about how thousands of people drive by that Arby’s every day. To them — and even to us who noticed it daily and occasionally ate there — it was just a fast-food restaurant. Commerical, compassionless, devoid of personality. But to Doug, it was a key aspect of his life for three and a half decades. Despite this loss, he is positive about the future. For one, he still owns the Arby’s on River Rd.. But he also said he had other things he was looking forward to doing. I wish him the best of luck.

Doug also relayed a funny story. The Arby’s corporate franchise manager had called him a while back and asked him what he planned to do with the sign. He said, “Oh! I put it on eBay, and I’ve already sold it for $20,000!” The other end of the line went silent for several seconds before a slow, worried, “Reeeeaaaally?” came back. Doug immediately burst into laughter, “No! Not really!”

This entry was posted by Steve on Wednesday, November 30th, 2005 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Local/Regional, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.