Miranda Pederson/Daily News  Tessa Reynolds takes a food order from Jamie Woodyard and his family, all of Bowling Green, on Friday, June 28, 2013, at Teresa's Restaurant. The popular dining establishment was sold at auction Friday for $300,000 plus a buyer's premium and the new ownership will take over at the end of July.

A restaurant, as is evidenced by Teresa’s, is much more than a place to eat.

It can nourish not only the body, but mind and soul as well. For years, residents from the Gordon Avenue area and across the city have come to the restaurant for the home-cooked meals and fellowship they enjoy with other customers and the staff at the restaurant. 

The restaurant has hosted election victory dinners, coffee klatches and tables of lunch gabbers catching up on the latest news.

As early as 1997, owner Teresa Blair Reno began nourishing the community spiritually as well when she began preparing free Thanksgiving meals for the community with the help of her church, Hillvue Heights, The Salvation Army and hundreds of volunteers. While it’s been a few years since Reno has offered the meals, at the time, she wanted to make sure that people who might otherwise be alone on that holiday had a place to connect with others. Others have taken up the cause to provide community meals on that holiday.

Reno said the restaurant business has been her life for the past 37 years, but it’s time for her to take a break and spend time with her family.

The restaurant was auctioned last week while many of its longtime customers watched with curiosity. 

We can’t begrudge Reno the needed break, but we want her to know that she and her restaurant, which first started on Center Street before moving 16 years ago, has provided life for that area in the community.

Joe Natcher, owner of Southern Foods, talked with Reno before the sale about the importance of keeping going a restaurant that not only serves the immediate area, but can also draw support from other areas of the community. We couldn’t agree more.

Teresa’s will open again Monday after the usual Fourth of July vacation. We wish Reno the best in her final few weeks on the job. We hope that the restaurant’s new owners, The Colonial Inn in Russellville, understand the obligation that comes with owning a community establishment. While The Colonial Inn, we are sure, has its own brand of hospitality and community mindedness, we hope that it keeps some of that flair that was known at Teresa’s.

We also hope that those sometimes nearly 25 people who work for Teresa’s will still have a good place to work when the new owners take over at the end of this month.