From the Arizona Daily Star:
Summerhaven residents and visitors craving fresh-baked pies have lost one of their key places to get a fix.
The Mount Lemmon Cafe, known for its pies, closed shop earlier this week, owner Marty Mollo said.
Located on the left side of the Catalina Highway just as it enters Summerhaven, the Mount Lemmon Cafe was one of the few structures in the mountain community not destroyed by the 2003 Aspen Fire.
It was opened in 1985 by Pamela Rinella, who operated the shop with her husband, Mollo, until she died last September at the age of 65.
Rinella’s death signaled the cafe’s downfall, said Bob Zimmerman, who owns the building.
“The heart and soul of this operation was Pam,” Zimmerman said. "Little by little, when she left, it ground to a halt."
Zimmerman declined to discuss why he closed the business, but Mollo said Zimmerman intends to bulldoze the cafe to make way for other restaurants.
“We’re working on some plans, but I have to be kind of vague because so much depends on getting money, and the banks don’t do that as much anymore,” Zimmerman said. "We’d like to get something open as soon as possible."
Mollo, 59, who said he recently had surgery and had become unable to work, hopes to someday open his own pie shop on Tucson’s East Side.
Until then, though, he suggested that the cafe’s many regular customers “close their eyes and remember what the sour cream apple (pie) tastes like. That’s what it tastes like in heaven.”
Sirena