Several locals pulled into the parking lot and simply stared, at a loss for words as they watched a community mainstay reduced to charred ruins, thin smoke still rising from the ashes.
Ruthie's was the kind of place where everyone felt familiar, whether you'd been in last week, last month or only when hunting and fishing season came around.
It was where my parents took me, and where I later took my children and grandchildren. For anyone who walked through those doors, it felt like home: comforting, unpretentious and powerful in its simplicity.
It was the kind of place that served chicken-fried steak smothered in gravy, their version of peas and carrots succotash, and a pile of french fries unlike any other. Outside of the mile-high pies, it was the french fries that everyone loved.
Originally known as Burnsy's Diner in the 1950s and '60s, it was so rooted in the community that it even sponsored its own bowling team in the Ligonier Valley league and was famous for staying open 24 hours a day.
Every time I went, I met not just locals but hunters and anglers on their way to cabins, Pittsburgh families headed for the Flight 93 National Memorial or Idlewild, and neighbors gathering after Sunday services at one of the many churches that dot this Westmoreland County village.