The Black & White Restaurant has been a mainstay of the downtown here for decades, but more recently it became a bit of scene stealer in the movie Salem Falls.
Salem Falls location manager A.J. Hordal has been in business since 1995-96 doing a lot of commercials, television movies and feature films. He said the movie was based in a small town “and a big, big part of the script happened in a diner.”
“But there’s not a lot of diners left any more. In most small towns, the diners have been replaced by Tim Hortons.”
Hordal said that while a diner interior might have been accomplished in studio shots “the director really liked the idea of having a big window and seeing a small town street outside.”
In taking a tour of the region, they stopped in Fergus, looking at an empty storefront on the main street. “Then someone remembered the Black & White restaurant down the street and that it was an old school diner. We took a look at it, and they automatically thought it would be perfect. It’s period 1964 or similar.”
“Fortunately the owners were very accommodating, willing to shut down for a couple of weeks for the filming.”
“We got the best of both worlds. We came to the town the director wanted and just by luck, happened to find a diner that worked. That doesn’t happen too often.”
Hordal was amazed by the reception of the community.
“Everyone, from the churches to the next door neighbours in the Grand Theatre looked after us.”
He said the filming lucked out with its stars as well. “Sometimes they can be real stand-offish, but they were very accommodating and took photos with a lot of people in the town.”
Director Bradley Walsh shared Horndal’s opinion of the community.
He said it was an exhaustive search to fill a tall order. “We knew when we found it, we would build the show around the community.”
There were ideas and notions, “but ultimately there was only one place which could provide everything the story required. The diner was the first and most important thing, because so much of the story telling time was spent here.”
“Strangely we almost passed through the community, missing out on the Black & White diner.”
Walsh said they loved the community of Fergus, but had not discovered the diner he was looking for.
He then peered into what appeared to be Chinese Restaurant, “which was ancient – it was perfect.”
Walsh was with Hordal, the production designer, a producer, then the whole gang started coming in.
“We were all starting to drool, because it was perfect.”
From there, Walsh said work began discovering how to use other parts of the town for the filming.
“We looked at other places which were pretty sweet, but no one could provide what Fergus did.”
“The falls here were great as well, we wanted to give Salem Falls a character – which required the community itself to have a character, with a sense of history.
“The community itself was very supportive.”
