True Love

‘There’s something in the root beer’

BY PIETA WOOLLEY | pieta@prliving.ca

Back in the late 1980s when the local A&W stood where MCC is now, 15-year-old Nicki Newsham’s first job was about to change her life forever. She was a car hop for the burger joint, running root beer floats and Teen Burgers to cars.

“The uniforms weren’t cute; we had no rollerskates,” she recalled. “I remember the visors and the navy blue polyester pants.”

Still, a group of teen boys would show up regularly. Her friend, another car hop, had a crush on one of the boys, and Nicki just assumed he dropped by to see her friend. The friend asked Nicki to get his phone number for her.

“I just said, ‘Hi, can I get your number for my friend?’ And he offered me a ride home,” said Nicki. “It didn’t work out too well for her.”

The boy was, of course, Matt Lister, then 17 and a new graduate of Max Cameron Secondary. The two dated, moved in together, had their daughter Katherine, and the rest is history.

The constant in their relationship for the past 30 years has been A&W. Nicki managed A&Ws in the Lower Mainland while Matt went to school, then they returned to Powell River when the owners of the original A&W offered to sell it to them. They bought it, of course, and are still running the restaurant 13 years later. Is it a romantic place? “We always joked in Abbotsford that there was something in the root beer, there were so many pregnancies there. Magic root beer,” said Nicki. “We have two ex-employees [in Powell River] getting married in March and having a baby later in the year. Working here, the staff really does become like a family.”