In some communities it’s called a plaza, a square, a commons… Here in Pine Plains it was Lia’s Mountain View.
It’s a restaurant, an Italian one. But not only do you not have to be Italian to go there, you don’t have to be rich, you don’t have to be a farmer, or a beautiful influencer, or _____. It’s an antipasto of acommunity where differences are not blended in but tossed together and mixed. A place to be with friends and family, but if you don’t know anyone you soon will. and you will get to like them. That is Lia’s Mountain View. And they did it for 40 years.
For a while, in TDBTP (Those Days Before The Pandemic), Lia’s Mountain View had Oysters ‘n Wings Tuesday Nights. Whether or not you liked oysters (or even wings), you were bound to have a great time because there were always people you knew –or would get to know — and like.
I did not post this as an archive of the past but as a goal for what we might regain in our future. We seem to have become brittle and splintered; we need to be reminded of how we mixed it up when we were one community.
A family business, it celebrated its 40th anniversary — with a party of course!
I was Lia’s Mountain View. After 40 years, the family closed it and moved on. The Mountain View stayed. Empty.
