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Francis Deck died of cancer at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital on June 22. He was 89.Courtesy of family
To those who knew him, Francis Deck was Fran. And Fran made it his business to know people. Taking over the small family-owned Fran’s Restaurant franchise in 1976 after the death of his father, Francis Deck Sr., the warm restaurateur was just as happy to show photos of his grandchildren to patrons as he was to hand them a menu.
Like his dad (the namesake Fran who opened the first location of the family’s chain of diners in 1940 on Toronto’s St. Clair Avenue at Yonge Street), he was a willing talker whose memory capacity for the restaurant’s lore was as bottomless as the cups of coffee.
The Toronto-based Fran’s broke the mould when it came to waffles, for example, and Mr. Deck enjoyed telling how. When a customer mentioned his love of waffles and ice cream, the story goes, Mr. Deck’s father decided to put them on the same plate and make the combo a permanent menu item. It was that kind of gesture that defined Fran’s, a place shaped as much by the people who walked through the door as by the Deck family, the employees and all those comfort-food choices.
Mr. Deck died of cancer at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital on June 22. He was 89. For nearly six decades, his family owned an operation built on hospitality and unpretentious North American fare that is part of Toronto’s cultural fabric and a household name across generations. The Decks sold the franchise and brand name in 2001.
Mr. Deck understood that a restaurant is not simply a place to eat, and that human interaction is the sustenance that matters more.
“Dad believed that restaurants were in the people business,” said Brian Deck, one of his sons. “The food brought people through the door, but kindness, generosity and treating everyone with respect were what brought them back.”
It is easy as Fran’s apple pie to walk through those doors − as a 24-hour establishment, the entrances aren’t locked. Its customers have long been shift workers, nightlifers, families, entertainers, pancake cravers, hot roast beef sandwich connoisseurs, after-church eaters and life’s rice-pudding people.
“Fran’s defined the diner and holds a place in my aorta,” said Zane Caplansky, of Caplansky’s Delicatessen. “When I was 12 and planning my bar mitzvah, my mother suggested we might go to France. I thought she said Fran’s and got terribly excited.”
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Mr. Deck grew up in Fran’s, filling virtually every position. His family said that even when he moved into management, he never believed any job was beneath him.Courtesy of family
Gordon Lightfoot regularly played at a Fran’s at 332 Yonge St. Ronnie Hawkins dropped in one night and suggested the young troubadour switch to the livelier side of the street. Heeding the advice, Mr. Lightfoot took a gig at Steele’s Tavern, where his career took off.
The great pianist Glenn Gould was a regular at the long-gone landmark location at 21 St. Clair Ave. W. The night-owling Bach enthusiast had no variations to his wee-hour repast of a plate of scrambled eggs served on the Formica of his favourite booth.
“He lived on Avenue Road and St. Clair and he used to come down and speak through his scarf and that kind of stuff,” Mr. Deck said of the eccentric musician in 2001. “We had everybody in here.”
Radio broadcaster Gordon Sinclair routinely followed his morning shifts at CFRB with a noon-hour glass of wine at the same Fran’s.
As a teenager in the late 1960s, classical guitarist Liona Boyd performed at Toronto Guitar Society concerts at the Unitarian church down the street. “I have fond memories of going to Fran’s with my parents,” Ms. Boyd said. “We always ordered pancakes with maple syrup and hot chocolate.”
The flagship Fran’s location closed when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2001. A grieving Mr. Deck sat in the back dining room alone and cried.
“The family owned the St. Clair building for many years before selling it,” Mr. Deck’s son said. “It was a very emotional closing for Dad because of what the original location represented.”
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Front View of the Fran’s Restaurant on Victoria St., Toronto, in February, 2005.Fernando Morales/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Deck and two of his sisters (Theresa Wood and Ellen-Jane Rose, who died in 2016) were directors of Fran Restaurants Ltd. Part of its downturn can be traced to a costly, unsuccessful expansion into Ontario markets Hamilton, Windsor and Kingston during the 1990s. But the glory days of urban diners were already fading by the 1970s.
“In the early 1960s, Fran’s was the restaurant of record for Rosedale meals out. Toronto didn’t eat out much then, and Fran’s offered comfort,” former Globe and Mail food critic Joanne Kates said. “It was all about superbly managed expectations. The innards of the slightly dry club sandwich never wavered from one year to the next. The food was bland – the way staid old Hogtown liked it. When the food scene in Toronto exploded in the 1970s, Fran’s became an object of gastro-derision. It was a sad day for an institution of such reliability.”
There are two Fran’s Restaurants still in the business of bonhomie and banquet burgers, both in downtown Toronto: one across the street from Massey Hall and the other on College Street near what used to be Maple Leaf Gardens. The latter Fran’s, which opened in 1950, had a spaghetti cellar downstairs.
“When I was young, I shared a house with three other comics. We had no money and bought the cheapest, most meagre groceries,” comedian Simon Rakoff said. “I fainted frequently from a lack of proper nourishment. Once a month, we would go to Fran’s on College for their all-you-can-eat spaghetti. We would stuff ourselves. It was the only treat we could afford.”
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The Fran’s Restaurant at 20 College St. in Toronto.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
In 1993, a new bicycle lane on College Street eliminated drop-offs, taxi stands and street parking in a busy downtown strip. Acting on a complaint from Mr. Deck, who said business had dropped by 10 per cent because of the dedicated bike lane, the city solicited opinions from other affected merchants.
“I’m not against bikes, but this is a real business issue,” Mr. Deck told The Globe at the time.
The College Street location was purchased in the late 1990s by independent restaurateur Joon Kim, who later acquired the Fran’s brand. In 2004, Mr. Kim opened the Fran’s across the street from Massey Hall.
Mr. Deck insisted French fries be piping hot. Because he spent so much time walking around the restaurants, he wanted his spuds still warm by the time he got to them. He was also serious about his lifelong fandom of football’s Green Bay Packers and about cups of Joe, which he only drank black.
“If you’re putting something in your coffee,” he would say, “you’re hiding that it’s not good coffee.”
George Francis Deck was born Oct. 5, 1936, in Buffalo, N.Y. He was the only son of four children born to George Francis (Fran) Deck Sr. and Ellen Jane Deck (née Barry). The family moved to Toronto when he was five.
He attended Blessed Sacrament Catholic School and the all-boys St. Michael’s College School. He graduated from the Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Administration program at the formerly named Ryerson Institute of Technology (now Toronto Metropolitan University).
Mr. Deck grew up in Fran’s, filling virtually every position. His family said that even when he moved into management, he never believed any job was beneath him.
“If the dish room was backed up, he washed dishes. If the kitchen needed help, he pitched in,” his son said. “He worked with suppliers, negotiated deals and tested new menu items.”
On May 28, 1976, Mr. Deck’s father was killed when he and his wife walked along a highway in Arizona, where they were vacationing. He was 71. At the time, the Fran’s chain he created consisted of four restaurants that employed 500 people. He was a founding member of the Canadian Restaurant Association, and, according to The Globe report of his death, he always credited the success of the restaurants to 24-hour service, stellar coffee and his wife’s salad dressing.
Taking over as president of the business, the younger Mr. Deck was a steward to a steady institution. “We just avoided a lot of the trends and tried to stay with our basic menu,” he said in 2001.
In 1985, however, a decision to remove rice pudding from the menu triggered howls of disappointment. Toronto Star humorist Gary Lautens wrote that no rice pudding at Fran’s was like “a Toronto without the Leafs, a Toronto without Rosedale, a Toronto without the Ex, a Toronto without a four-mile backup on the 401, for heaven’s sake.”
How seriously did Fran’s take the protest? The proof was in the rice pudding: The quintessential comfort food was quickly returned to the menu.
In addition to his career in food service, Mr. Deck counselled youth at Covenant House Toronto, a shelter for homeless youth. His family said he also became a psychotherapist specializing in addiction therapy and led a men’s group for nearly 30 years.
“He simply believed that if he had life experience that could help someone else, then he had an obligation to share it,” his son said.
Mr. Deck leaves his wife, Anne Deck. He was a devoted family man who said there wasn’t a restaurant meal that could compete with her cooking. He also leaves his sister, Ms. Wood; children, Anne Marie Ecclestone, Karen Deck, Francis Deck, Glenn Deck and Brian Deck; 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
For his funeral reception he specifically requested corned beef sandwiches, catered by Fran’s.
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