Each year, thousands of visitors that come to Carbon County to visit this nucleus of the American Industrial Revolution, drive right past the Central Lunch. Occasionally a car stops and the driver comes in to ask for directions.

If it’s an early weekday morning, the regular crowd has filled the stools at the table and there’s another row of people waiting for a seat. All at once, they look toward the door—and there’s a brief silence. 

This is a place, like the corner bar in the now in reruns Cheers, where everyone knows your name. When that front door opened, everyone was ready to give a good morning to the entrant. 

Everyone knew—right away, this was a stranger and they were curious. The tourist, likewise, was surprised to get this attention. 

When I came through the door, that’s what I noticed. But in a moment, everyone was back to eating and schmoozing and I walked toward the woman at the end of the counter who seemed to be in charge. 

This was 67-year old Deanie Hough. She’s been involved in the Central Lunch for 42 years—for the first eight years as an employee and for the last 36 years, as the owner. 

The Central Lunch at the bridget hat crosses the Lehigh Canal into Weissport. It was once a lunch stop for New Jersey Central Railroad passenger trains that stopped at the station stood across Bridge Street. 

Passenger serviced stopped before Deanie started working at the Central Lunch in 1961. There was still freight service and the engineers would often pull their trains into the station and walk over to the Central for lunch. The station was raised, Deanie thinks, in the early 1970s. 

Deanie grew up in Franklin Township and went to school at Franklin Elementary and Lehighton High Schools. She has childhood memories of the glorious smell of hamburgers as she passed the Central Lunch. “We walked or got a ride to school,” she explained. “We never rode the bus. We stopped here cause we smelled the hamburgers on the grill.” 

Deanie was hired by Ilene Zellers. Zellers had bought the store from Abbie Christman.  While she was working there, the Zellers sold the store to Bob Lefler. 

Central lunch was busy and crowded in the 1970s with men from the New Jersey Zinc Company, Bethlehem Steel, Mack Trucks and ladies from Bishops and the Silk Mill. They opened at 5:30 a.m. and closed at 11 p.m. at night. Sometimes, there were rows of customers three deep.

 Deanie still sees that the shop is open by 5:30 a.m., but now it closes at two in the afternoon. She doesn’t work there herself during the week when school is in session. She works in the cafeteria of her former school, Franklin Elementary. Now 67, she plans to retire after this year and return full time to Central lunch. 

Where else can she be with her family? Her sister, Lover – probably worth a trip just to meet a lady with such a lovely name, cooks and serves. At one time or another, so does her children: Maria, Patsy, Michael and Bobby and Bobby’s wife, Patti. 

Even Deanie’s ex-husband, Arthur – or Jumpy as she calls him, hangs out at the Central. “After all, we have four kids in common,” says Deanie.

 When Bob Leffler offered to sell her the store in 1969, Deanie was scared. She was raising four children and had never operated a business. But Leffler wanted to retire and “Everyone liked me and I knew all the people,” she said. Deanie initially rented Central Lunch for a year and then bought it.

 Customer Virginia Yeakel operates a tanning salon in Lehighton. “I come here often,” she said. “I pitch in to help out.” The place is like family to her and she thinks nothing of going behind the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee or pour a refill for one of her counter companions. 

Signs and illustrations around the lunch counter mock the food and the regulars. Dick Gross, who loves to draw cartoons, often has breakfast there on Saturdays. Then he’ll go home and return the following week with a cartoon poking fun at one or more the patrons. He created a front page of an imaginary Weissport News and wrote, “Federal Court ruled today that Central Lunch could avoid bankruptcy proceedings if they agreed to stay open 24-hours per day, and serve free coffee at all Borough Council meetings.” 

Other period signs read, “Good food takes time to prepare. Yours will be ready in a second.” And “This is not Burger King. You don’t get it your way. ” 

Central lunch has survived several floods and a train derailment on January 1, 1973. Deanie’s former husband, Arthur described the event. “I was standing behind the counter and there were 14 people sitting in here.”

 Through the window he saw an engine and a car leave the tracks and he hollered, “Get out! The cars are on the ground.” One man jumped over the counter and went out the back door. Everyone else continued eating as if nothing happened. Although the train tracks are just a few feet from the Central Lunch, the building escaped being hit. 

The prices are quite reasonable and the food is quite good. Central Lunch actually sees their best meal as breakfast and offers a specialty called “The Mess”—home fries, eggs, peppers and onions and a choice of sausage, ham or bacon, all will cheese melted on top. I had it without the meat and it made for a stick to your ribs breakfast. 

If you stay awhile, everyone will get to know your name.