When our favorite place vanished – then returned

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a place like this.

Not somewhere you go all the time, but a favorite place just far enough outside your routine that when you go there, it means something. For Cori and me, that place was Kelly’s Café in Brunswick. I’m sure many of you have been there. For us, it’s just about 15 minutes north of our Medina home.

I remember my first time there. It wasn’t flashy. It had a family-run feel, the kind of place where you could tell people worked hard and took pride in it. But what made it different, at least for me, was the food. They made crepes. Really good crepes.

Now, I was never really a crepe guy. Every version I’d seen leaned sweet – a lot of fruit, sugar and whipped cream. That wasn’t really my thing. But this place had a full savory menu. The first time I went, I ordered one with cheddar cheese, spinach and bacon. I remember taking a bite and looking at Cori and saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever had anything better.” It wasn’t just good. It was the kind of meal that stays with you.

So it became a small tradition for us. Not something we did every week, but when we had a free morning or a quiet weekend, we’d make the drive, sit down together, order the same thing. And every time, it delivered. Until one afternoon, it didn’t.

We pulled into the parking lot like we always did. Same road. Same turn. But when we looked up, the sign was gone. Kelly’s Café wasn’t there. We sat there for a moment, trying to make sense of it. Cori said what most people would say – sometimes places close, families move on. And that was probably the logical explanation. But it didn’t feel logical. It felt like something had simply disappeared.

We drove away, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. For months, I asked people if they knew what happened to Kelly’s Café. Most didn’t. Until one day, our friend Kate said, “I love that place.” I said, “Yeah, too bad it’s gone.” She looked at me and said, “It’s not gone. I was just there.”

That was just enough to excite us and scare us at the same time. So Cori and I got in the car and drove back. Same road. Same parking lot. And there it was.

Kelly’s Café.

The sign. The building. People inside eating like nothing had ever changed.

I walked in and asked if they had closed for a while, maybe taken the sign down or renovated. They looked at me like I was confused. “We’ve been here the whole time.”

We sat down. I ordered the same crepe. And it tasted exactly the way I remembered it.

On the drive home, Cori and I didn’t talk much. There wasn’t really anything to say, because whatever happened didn’t quite fit. I can understand if one person remembers something wrong, maybe missing a detail or convincing yourself of something that wasn’t there. But this was different. Cori and I both remember it the same way – two people remembering the same thing that did not exist.

Every once in a while, I still think about that day, and I wonder if we did not lose the café at all. Maybe, for a brief moment, we stepped into a different version of the world. A different dimension. A sliding door. A place where Kelly’s Café did not exist.

All I know is that we made our way back from that world, and I have to tell you –

I like this one a lot better.