Recalling a half-century of coming to Nonie’s on Grove Street in Peterborough, Lillian Grant of Peterborough pointed to the bakery case.

“I want to be laid out on the doughnut shelf,” she said.

On Friday at Nonie’s, longtime patrons enjoyed their final meals at the restaurant hours before it closed its doors for good.

“The whole experience has moved me to tears,” said owner Greg Smith as he oversaw lunch prep in the kitchen, which included seeing that his children didn’t get any bits of shells in the bowl of eggs they were mixing.

Smith began serving breakfast and lunch at Nonie’s 24 years ago, and has loved doing so. 

“I told my father years ago that I wanted to own a breakfast place. When it became available, he said ‘Buy it,’” said Smith. 

The name “Nonie’s” comes from the name of an earlier owner’s mother. When Smith took it over, he brought some changes to the offerings.

“Restaurants would buy corned beef, but we’d buy brisket and boil it off, to make reubens and corned beef hash,” he said. “We went to food shows and learned how to upgrade the quality of things. I think people appreciated that we made things from scratch.”

Trays of fresh eggs and no cartons of egg mixes on a nearby table reflect this philosophy. Smith has a term for restaurants that buy pre-packaged and processed ingredients – can openers.

In spite of this commitment and some very loyal customers, multiple factors led Smith to the decision to close, one of them being local housing costs.

“We can’t pay people what they need to be able to live nearby,” he said.

Smith added that there’s a lot of competition in town, to the point of oversaturation. He also said serving breakfast but not dinner could have been a drawback.

“If you’ve got people on a fixed income, they may choose to skip a certain meal – breakfast,” he said.

Smith also needs a new kidney. It appears that his son is a match as a donor, but the recovery time from the operation looks to be longer than he initially thought. 

While there’s the sting of closing, Smith said he has also been moved to tears by the kindness he has experienced since his announcement.

“One gentleman offered to pay the rent here for me for six months while I was away, and he didn’t want to be paid back,” said Smith.

Smith’s wife, Katelyn, recalled how they worked to make Nonie’s employee-friendly. 

“We’ve never sold alcohol on purpose, so we could hire young people to serve our customers,” she said. 

“We moved our opening from 6 to 8 in the morning so that mothers could work here after they got their kids off to school,” Greg added. 

Heather Fletcher of Dublin pointed to a booth a group would meet in years ago.

“First, it was a cancer support group, then a pregnancy support group,” said Fletcher.

Sally Hoover of Peterborough called Nonie’s “an institution.” Across from her, Gwyn Baldwin, also of Peterborough recalled the “fabulous baked goods. There was a jumble word puzzle on the wall. If you solved it, you got a free muffin.”

Across from Grant, Alison Weber of Peterborough said, “I had my baby shower here when I was going to have my son.”

Ken and Jeanne Nevard came up from Pepperell, Mass., on the last day on a recommendation. 

“The receptionist at my foot doctor said, ‘You have to go there because it’s your last chance,’ and here we are,” said Jeanne.

Chris Mackenson recalled how he was able to help the business out with a technical issue a while back. He said that as a widower, he’s valued being able to have breakfasts here.

Katelyn Smith watched their children, Brielle, 9, and Tyler, 5, at a mixing bowl. 

“I was here the day that I brought our youngest home from the hospital after he was born,” she said. “Brielle  has waited on customers. It’s given her real confidence. We always thought this is where they would have their first paying jobs.” 

At the register, Kelly Vallaincourt said she will miss the customers.

She has worked at Nonie’s on weekends for eight years, and isn’t sure how she’ll fill those days in the new year.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself now,” she said.