HANOVER — The bustling lunch scene at Cutting’s Northside Cafe on Monday felt like the old days: the parking lot was full, people were eating their sandwiches at tables outside and inside the restaurant and the line was five customers deep waiting at the counter to pay their bills.
“Hi Carolee,” said Elaine Hawthorne as she took customer Carolee Crossman’s order at the cash register before turning to a customer and explaining, “I’m a schoolteacher, so I memorize names.”
Crossman, of Enfield, has been coming to lunch at Cutting’s on Lyme Road, also known as Route 10, in Hanover since it opened in 2007. He first walked from his office down the street and now drives from the Tuck School in Dartmouth where he works.
“This place is like ‘Cheers.’ They know your name,” Crossman smiles, referring to the 1980s TV show that featured a cast of characters who made the Boston neighborhood bar their home away from home. “This place is like family.”
Cutting is a family: Head chef and owner Cole Cutting prepares orders with his wife, Tara, who passes sandwiches and pizzas between the kitchen and customers waiting at the counter while Cutting’s grandmother, Hawthorne, works the register. Sometimes Cutting’s father comes in to help, and if customers are lucky, they might catch a glimpse of Cutting’s 5-year-old son playing behind the counter.
Now, Cutting’s becomes the latest family restaurant in Hanover to close, following the closure of C & A’s Pizza in less than a month and, before that, Everything But Anchovies, two mainstays whose simple but satisfying dishes have delighted the taste buds of city residents and college students alike.
After 17 years, Wednesday was the last day for Cutting.
“Things never recovered after the pandemic,” Cole Cutting said from behind the counter after finishing lunch on Tuesday, explaining the decision that led him and Tara to close. “We wish we could, but foot traffic is not what it used to be,” he said, adding that the downturn in their catering business has made recovery more difficult.
But Cutting’s closing isn’t just another restaurant going under. Cole Cutting is the third generation of the Cutting family to make a living from the building, which his grandfather designed in a Hanover High School carpentry class and built with salvaged lumber from his great-grandfather’s farmhouse on the property that burned down.
They called it the Little Store and sold candy and gasoline. His great-grandfather sold the property, but later, when Cole Cutting was about 5, his parents rented the building and ran a grocery store there. Cutting’s parents hoped they would eventually be able to buy the building back, but that didn’t work out, Cole Cutting said.
“It was very heart-wrenching,” he said.
Cole Cutting said he and Tara had the same dream — they and their son would live in the back apartment — but the cafe’s slump in business in recent years made that hope impossible.
Growing up in Lyme, Cutting, 41, attended the University of New Hampshire and Lyndon State to study physical education — photos of the Patriots, Bruins and Red Sox adorn the cafe walls — but college didn’t interest him. He worked seasonal shifts at King Arthur Baking Co. and then headed west with some friends to Tucson, Arizona.
In Tucson, Cutting got a job delivering pizza, eventually rising to pizza maker and then managing the business.
That’s when he fell in love with the world of cooking and making people happy with the food he made.
Returning to the Upper Valley after Tucson, Cutting said he would pass by his family’s old haunts and eventually he got the idea to use his new skills to reclaim some of his heritage.
He opened Cutting’s Northside Cafe — his mother is a co-owner of the business — on April 17, 2007, the day he turned 24.
“Initially it was me, my father and my uncle who helped, before my uncle passed away,” Cutting said.
Cutting was young and was able to stay open until 10 p.m., delivering to Dartmouth dorms and fraternities. Business was strong enough that he was able to hire employees.
One of the employees is Tara. Tara, who grew up in Charlestown, worked at Cutting’s for four years “doing everything,” but then got married and moved out of town.
Later, her husband died of cystic fibrosis and Tara returned to the area and worked at Cutting.
Romance blossomed between the owner and his employee, “and the rest is history,” Tara said Tuesday. They married in 2021.
Before the pandemic, Cutting’s did a solid breakfast and lunch business serving people commuting to or on their lunch breaks from CRREL, Kendal in Hanover, the former Dartmouth Printing Co. and office workers in the cluster of businesses along Route 10.
The menu is simple but the portions are hearty. Bestsellers include the steak and cheese, the “Grammy’s BLT,” and the cranberry walnut chicken salad.
Open from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Cutting and Tara would work 12-hour shifts, with Cole’s grandmother coming in for four hours between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to work the cash register.
This cafe has unplanned elements.
Several years ago, when his grandmother began to have difficulty walking, Cole attached a rope to a pulley that he and his grandmother pulled to carry orders clipped to the rope with clothespins from the kitchen table to the kitchen.
Cole Cutting said a big change happened around 2018 when Dominoes opened in Hanover and cut back on campus delivery. In response, Cutting started a side business catering, mostly on the weekends, to cater events on campus. For several years, Cutting had a catering contract with the Coolidge Hotel in White River Junction for events at the hotel.
But catering business has also declined post-pandemic, and with people who work at businesses along Route 10 often working from home and not commuting, lunchtime foot traffic has also declined.
Cutting said he doesn’t know what will happen next but he is keeping an open mind.
“There are a lot of options out there. For now, I’d probably do something different,” he said.
After the holidays, Cutting plans to reopen the cafe until the freezer runs out of food and will continue serving through October.
“This is all I’ve ever done. It’s been almost 20 years. I don’t think I could work in someone else’s kitchen,” Cutting said with a laugh.
Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com
