By Dakota Antelman, Contributing Writer
Westborough — Before leaving Westborough for college, recent Westborough High School graduate Hannah Snell made a special trip to her favorite restaurant in town – South Street Diner. However, rather than coming for food, Snell came to collect a check.
Snell won this year’s South Street Diner scholarship after outgoing owners Phyllis Keene and Mark Sullivan selected her essay as the best they received. The annual contest asks applicants to write an essay describing what the diner means to them.
In her winning essay, Snell described a single morning spent eating with her friends at the diner.
“We banter and laugh about the last week, riding the waves of our raising and lowering voices and cackles that spin through the restaurant,” Snell wrote “This is it, this is home.”
Though Sullivan and Keene recently sold that proverbial home, the diner’s new owners Edward and Caroline Mikhail said they are committed to preserving the ambiance that Snell discussed in her essay.
Part of that preservation will be the continuation of the annual scholarship.
“We’re not going to change it,” Caroline Mikhail said shortly before helping present Snell with her scholarship.
For Snell, who plans to study chemistry and biology at Smith College in the fall, South Street Diner will always be a part of her memory of home.
“It’s really special,” she said. “This place is so great. It’s really the heart of the town. Getting this scholarship from South Street is really special to me because it’s a place I will always remember when I go off to college.”