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This is Jenna Barry on August 7th, 2024. I'm interviewing Diane De Benedictus, and she's here to tell us about her family restaurant, Carol's. OK. Uh, formerly Diane Carroll, um, I was born and raised in Medford, and my family had Carol's started out as Carol's diner, turned

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in to be, uh, Carol's restaurant with a restaurant that sat over 250 people with 4 function rooms. Um, It was great to grow up in the business. Well, I worked there as I got older, but um having a family business it was great um went there

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many times and many people went there. I mean, even celebrities they attended functions and things there. Um, Ted Kennedy, Alan Funt from Candid Camera. I don't know if you're. Many sports athletes, Celtics, Bruins players all attended things at Carol's, um, but it was a place everyone

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in the city congregated because it was just like the place to go open 24 hours, um, for a short time because then once they got a liquor license they couldn't be open all night but everybody from all cities would go there after clubs in the 70s

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and. Um, yeah, it was just great, you know, you just mentioned Medford. Oh, Carol's, everybody knew, you know, it really was, and even people ask directions. Are you near Carol's? Is it near Carol's? You know, I know where Carol's is. It was just, um, it was

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a great place. Was it started by your grandfather? My grandfather started it, yep, he had met battery shop and decided to open up a diner in front of the battery shop, which later turned into a gas station. Um, And it was actually. Three different diners they

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changed over the course of the years started in 1930. And then they've had a small diner expanded to a larger one and yet another large one, which was actually like a three section diner in the 60s, I think it was 62 or 3, maybe around the

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time I was born, um. Uh, like I said, a big more modern diner, 3 sections, and then that was what they added function rooms onto in an office and expanded the restaurant. So yeah, it was it was quite a place. And then did your father's generation,

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my father and my uncle were in World War 2 when my grandfather opened originally the first diner. And of course they came back to running a business and stopped all college education, went right into it, but they had that up until 1986 was when we closed,

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which was very sad. And yeah, almost 60 years. Oh, that's a long time. Yeah, yeah. You were telling me about the police. A lot of, yeah, a lot of police details when they were open all night and like I said, they met a lot of waitresses

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who became their wives. A lot of a lot of people met in there, but you know. Met my husband there, I met my wife there, you know, I hear more stories, but. It's just sad, it's gone, but in this generation now don't really know what Carol's

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was, you know, which is even my own kids, they don't, they weren't around, which was, you know. Sad thing, but I miss it, and it was, it was a big part of Medford. Yeah, it sounds like a town institution. It was at the time, um, as

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far as them having function halls, there wasn't many places for people in the city to have weddings, showers, you know, any type of party. All the clubs, the civic clubs in Medford had all their times there, the chamber, the rotary Kiwanis, so I mean, yeah, and

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get to know everybody. That's how you just. You know, like I said, everybody came in there. It was great. Sounds great. It was.