Precious photo album missing from Tony’s Just-A-Bite

The front counter of Tony’s Just-A-Bite is decorated with various trinkets and knickknacks, such as a jar labeled “Ashes of problem customers” and signs that say “Complaint department 200 miles that way” and “If you want breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen.”

But the restaurant’s most precious item, a photo album assembled years ago by Tony’s now-deceased daughter, Gwen Comfort, recently went missing from the downtown Blaine diner located at 679 Peace Portal Drive.

Owner Tony Andrews remembers last seeing the photo album about two months ago, when he took it out of a drawer – its usual spot – in order to show it to a customer. A few weeks later, he wanted to show it to another customer and realized it was missing. Tony searched all over his restaurant but could not find it. He is now asking for the public’s help in locating and returning it.

Gwen, who passed away from breast cancer five years ago, initially gave the photo album to Tony and his wife Tina around 2008. With a front cover decorated with stickers spelling the words “Tony and Tina’s Memories,” the album contains about 25 to 30 pages. Each page contains about four pictures protected by clear plastic film.

The photos date back to 2004, when Tony and Tina began renovating the brick building where Tony’s Just-A-Bite is located. The photos show different stages of the building’s renovation, as well as the workers who helped clean the place up. There are also some photos of Tony and Tina doing some of the renovation work together.

At the time she gave the album to Tony and Tina, Gwen was operating a hair salon in Bellingham. “She would come up here just to eat,” Tony said. After graduating from Washington State University, Gwen had initially started her career as a graphic designer before putting herself through hairdressing school.

When she was growing up, Gwen worked in the building where Chada Thai is now located. Tony said he built that building from the ground up in 1982 and operated a diner there for nine years. Gwen worked as a waitress there and at Tony’s other restaurants, including a restaurant on Ferndale’s Main Street where she met her husband Jay, a firefighter.

Tony, who is originally from Chicago, first came to Washington when he was in the Air Force and was stationed at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma. After leaving the Air Force, he returned to Chicago, doing an apprenticeship at his uncle’s café in 1974.

Tony later opened two restaurants in Portland, where his brother, a medical doctor, had planned to join him after finishing his residency in Vancouver, B.C. After Tony’s brother opened a medical office in Blaine instead, Tony moved up here as well, sensing lots of opportunity. At the time, many gas stations were closed and property was for sale, he said.

In addition to his restaurant in Chada Thai’s building, Tony had restaurants in Bellingham, Mount Vernon and Ferndale, where Tony met Tina while she was working as a waitress. Tina originally came to the U.S. in 1979 after fleeing Vietnam in a fishing boat with 280 other refugees, only 80 of whom survived.

While Tony once operated three different restaurants at the same time, Tony’s Just-A-Bite became his sole focus after it opened in 2006. Tony now runs the mom-and-pop diner by himself while Tina deals with a lung disease that she contracted about a year and a half ago.

The memory album from Gwen, and Tony’s willingness to share it, helped make the restaurant unique. Tony now hopes it will be returned or turn up somewhere. Anyone who finds it should call him at 360/371-2639.

“It was one of the few things that I had to remember her by, so you feel a little sad and mad at the same time,” Tony said. “I’m mad mostly at myself for not being as careful as I should have been with it. I hope it can still be returned.”