Lyttle’s – 507 Ouellette

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• Thanks for the update George--adds another name to the litany of names that have hung over that hotel's door. And an interesting piece of Windsor history with the minivan meetings--I'm a big supporter of the domestic industry--but can't scratch together anything positive to say about the Cordoba or Magnum--dreadful cars.

• I always thought it looked like a neat upstairs.

  ...waiting for something to happen. Maiden Lane is about as perfectly urban as Windsor gets.

  I remember in the early 80s the alley-like exit from the tunnel. You also used to go down it to get to the tunnel bus. I remember, vaguely, extremely institutional rooms, but with a neat 1950s look. But still depressing, in that faded horizontal blind kind of way.

• Damn--that's right Shawn--it's still there, isn't it?...it dead-ends at the new Tunnel Plaza buildings--and I recall at one time walking through what was then the National Trust building to get to Ouellette from the Tunnel Bus.

• The customs inspectors were about 10 feet from the exit door to the lane and they all sat on stools with leather tops. Very unintimidating and it was an institutional, empty spot with a couple of closed doors on the east side. Fortunately, I was never pulled in so I don't know what the rooms looked like. It is an interesting contrast to the way we go across the border by bus today.

• As soon as I saw the name, I remembered my mother saying something about my Grandmother working there for years - I sent her the link to this page, Here's what she had to say: "Ahh, I remember that place quite well. It was nothing to go in there on a Sunday after shopping in the greatest stores down Ouellette. My mother would be in there with a pocket full of tips. We knew she would put the money on the counter and we would sit there and eat ice cream."
  What great memories. I guess Lyttle's was quite the place.

• Hi Andrew:

  I worked for John and Evelyn Gilchrist who owned Lyttles Bakery at this site and also on the 1300-block of Ouellette (Gilchrist Coffee Shop) during my high school days ---
  70's. The most wonderful family I have ever worked for. I remember people coming from Detroit to pick up their orders of Scots Meat Pies - Sausage Rolls, fancy-cut sandwiches, tea cakes, pastries all hand made at the Maiden Lane location. They family evenutally sold this site and then the Ouellette Avenue outlet to the Branoff family as John and Evelyn were getting on in years. The best "first job" that I still have memories of to this day.

• To BM who commented on April 21 2008, my mother worked there around or just after my birth and I'm trying to find info can you respond to me email if you see this.
  Thanks.