1st Street Cafe posted for sale, owner looks toward retirement

After a decade of ownership, Devra Gromley is saying goodbye to her beloved 1st Street Cafe.

“I know this isn’t what I want to do with however many years I have left in my life,” Gromley said.

The cafe is in the building formerly known as the Addison House Restaurant & Lounge. Gromley, 61, and her husband, John, bought the mansion that had been boarded up in 2012.

The building was once home to Addison Leech, son of Leechburg founder David Leech. The Gromleys closed on the sale in 2015 and spent years refurbishing the building’s interior.

It’s now listed for sale at $550,000.

Once she retired in 2020, Gromley decided to follow her lifelong dream and turned the mansion into a cafe. She, along with John and their two adult sons, Justin and Robbie, renovated two floors of the mansion over three years.

“The building — I couldn’t be more proud of what my husband and stepsons did to this building,” Gromley said.

Gromley began by selling specialty coffee and fresh-baked goods, including carrot cake, banana bread, pepperoni rolls and cheesecake. When the building became too much to maintain with just coffee sales, the cafe began selling food.

It didn’t pan out the way she had planned.

“We can seat 100 people on the first floor,” she said. “That is a hard spot to fill on the weekdays. A lot of weekdays, quite frankly, it’s not worth being open. We are just not bringing in enough to make it worthwhile.”

She said dinner sales weren’t bringing in enough people and resulted in a lot of food waste.

“To be successful (selling dinner), you need to have a liquor license. I think that hurt us tremendously, but I was never wanting to do that,” Gromley said.

Gromley, of Upper Burrell, plans to retire at the end of April. With 12 grandchildren, 10 of which live near her, Gromley’s days promise to be full.

“I haven’t been to a sporting event for my grandkids in probably close to two years,” she said. “It wouldn’t matter if we were making a killing here. (My family) is so much more important to me.”

Gromley said if she was younger, the work might be easier to manage.

“The physical toll this has taken on my health has been pretty dramatic, pretty severe,” she said.

Gromley is at the cafe every day. She cooks, bakes, runs food and makes drinks for customers. Every day she wakes up in pain.

“My husband and I discussed it, and this isn’t how we want to live our lives,” Gromley said.

One of her concerns is that there are still a handful of gift certificates that have not been redeemed.

“People need to get their certificates cashed in by the end of April,” she said. “Whether it’s sold or not, I’m closing at the end of April.”

She is hopeful that another restaurant will take over the building.

The official closing date is scheduled for April 28. While she’ll miss her customers and the building, Gromley’s excited to be busy at Kennywood, a baseball field or a wrestling match for her grandchildren.

“I still love to feed people,” Gromley said, “just not at the expense of my health or my family.”