Business & Tech

After 30 Years, Havertown's Hanne's Is Closing

Liesel Spalding shares her memories of working at her family's business and her uncertainties of her future.

After three generations of family members working at for a total of 30 years, the famous Havertown restaurant will be closing its doors Tuesday, July 31.

Liesel Spalding, whose grandmother Hanne Bruwelheide bought the restaurant back in 1982 after having worked there as a waitress, said that the landlord of the building told her last Tuesday that he has sold the building and she would need to move out by July 31. 

Spalding said that she does not know who bought the building. 

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But Spalding did not just lose her family’s business of three decades.

“I just found out. I have to find a place to live,” the 27-year-old Spalding told the Haverford-Havertown Patch on Monday morning. “This is a place I grew up in.”

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Spalding—who said she is going through “medical issues” but wished not to go into detail about them—lives in the apartment above Hanne’s Breakfast Nook and since it is part of the restaurant, she has to find a new place to not only work, but to live as well.

But in her younger years she said that she would sleep in a cot in the basement of Hanne’s Breakfast Nook before her school bus came. For her, and her customers, it was a home away from home. 

“I was 4 years old when I served coffee,” she said with a smile, as she reminisced of her first time “working” at her then grandmother’s restaurant.

Susan Strieb, a long-time customer, remembers when Spalding was young.

“I’ve been here since Liesel was doing her homework at the counter,” Strieb said.

When her grandmother passed away in 1992, her mother Christine Spalding took over the restaurant with her brother. But Liesel Spalding took over the family business this past January, which is something she is proud of. 

“I successfully ran a business at 27,” the owner beamed.

And it is something that her customers have taken notice.

Both Frank LeVeque and John Bradley praised Spalding and her mother about the friendly atmosphere that they created.

“They have no menu (here) because they know you,” Bradley proudly said, who also drives Spalding to a depot to help pick up the food.

LeVeque echoed Bradley’s statement.

“The people behind the counter will cook your food and speak to you,” he said, who is the owner of .

But the warm memories from her and her customers are not the only things that matter to Spalding, she stated. She will also be walking away with something she learned from watching her mother and grandmother work at the restaurant.

“I got to watch two women with great work ethics,” she said.

Spalding, who was born two years after her grandmother bought the restaurant back in 1982, said that small businesses like Hanne’s Breakfast Nook are cherished in the community. She said that many of her customers came for their meals when they were children and now they have kids of their own.

“I know the economy is tight, but when the small businesses go, you will miss them,” said Spalding of places like hers. “You will wish that you supported them more.”

Spalding said she will be throwing a for her customers on Saturday, July 28, from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. at where food will be served. 

(Editor's note: .)


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