First Thursdays
The Southern Gables Neighborhood Association sponsors monthly luncheons for neighbors to get together and enjoy each other’s company. The pattern was disrupted for a while by you-know-what, but with a little caution…
Thursdays. Not just any Thursday, but first Thursday. The first Thursday of each month is marked in Southern Gables by the monthly neighborhood luncheon. Carol Lally started the ball rolling back in 2014 — remember those good old days? Carol retired from the lunch-organizing job back in 2020, and Judy Whitten picked it up after most of 2020 and part of 2021 had gone by with most of us avoiding restaurants. The first few get-togethers after resuming were outdoors, first in a park and then on outdoor patios. Even though we are currently meeting in restaurants again, everyone is aware and cautious about the public health guidelines and the group behaves with appropriate precautions.
Graphic from whyilovewhereilive.com
We usually meet at a restaurant close to the neighborhood, if not technically in it, and the monthly meetings have been the scene of high-level discussions on world peace, domestic tranquility, and the pros and cons of rabbits versus squirrels. Venues have been as near as Valley Inn, Las Dalias, and Garramone’s Pizza, to as far away as Fiddlesticks, Café Jordano, and Sunrise Sunset. We have also had the sad experience of having some of our favorite places go out of business during the you-know-what, placing hardships on our neighbors who ran these businesses and had to upend their lives.
Our neighbor Carol, when she was doing the organizing, made a habit of arranging the monthly dates a year at a time, but Judy has found it beneficial to plan pretty much month-to-month. It’s a difficult situation with changing rules for social gatherings, finding places with enough room to spread out as needed, and even covering the situation of unpredictable closures of restaurants, whether the sporadic no-notice kind due to shortage of workers, or the permanent kind of closure. Judy has found that the planning process has to be a lot more agile and responsive to change than when the neighborhood luncheons were started up six or seven years ago
The Neighborhood Association always holds a free raffle at the monthly luncheons, with the prize being a lunch. (Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch? Ha!)
The next Southern Gables luncheon is at The Den at Fox Hollow, 13410 W Morrison Rd, Lakewood, CO 80228. When? (This is a pop quiz.) First Thursday of the month. Thursday, February 3, 11:30. Want to go? RSVP to Judy Whitten 303-986-7157 or [email protected].
