A perfect location for the seasonal newspaper staff reunion

The Marienbad Restaurant goes back some 45 years to March 8,1974. The historical building itself dates back to about 1854. It was the original home of Josiah Blackburn’s London Free Press. Later, it served as the Queen’s Hotel before being claimed by the Farmer’s Advocate from 1921 to 1965.

Saturday, it was the location for the annual holiday season reunion of The London Free Press retirees. A perfect spot for the meeting of the dwindling number of newspaper employees old timers. At one time, not that long ago, The local paper was a huge force in the city with hundreds of employees and work going on almost around the clock. The massive building plus its parking lots occupied a full block of downtown land.

Today the vast majority of the employees have been laid off, the giant Goss press silenced and the building closed and sold. The small, remaining editorial staff now works out of a collection of small offices in a building smack dab in the core of the city not all that far from the paper's original home in the Marienbad.