On Friday, Aug. 29, Deborah Cota of Windham sat at the counter of Danielle’s Diner, a popular Raymond eatery, with her nieces, Haley and Kelsey Theberge.

How did Cota feel about the diner’s impending move down the road, to a building in North Windham formerly occupied by Stone Dog Cafe??

“Kinda sad to see it move,” Cota said. “My dad used to always haul me here by my ears.”

Cota pointed to the far side of the counter, where her father, Ernie C. Cota, is memorialized in a small gold plaque. Ernie Cota sat in the far counter seat on a daily basis starting in 2001, when the diner opened, until his death in 2004.

Why did her father love Danielle’s so much?

“The amount of food that you can get for such a low rate and the fact that everybody knew everybody,” Deborah Cota said. “Kind of like Cheers in the morning for breakfast. He had other buddies that would sit with him, like John. Some of them have passed away since.”

“I won’t be able to sit in my dad’s seat unless they bring it with them,” she added.

But according to Danielle DeSimon, the eponymous owner of Danielle’s, the Ernie Cota plaque will be placed on the far end of a new counter at the new Danielle’s on 862 Roosevelt Trail, which is scheduled to open Oct. 1.

“If I can’t peel that off, we’ll have a new one made,” Danielle said, referring to the Cota plaque.

DeSimon, facing the end of her lease, will close her Raymond location on Sept. 7. Meanwhile, Efficiency Electric and carpenter Roland Hannaford are busy renovating the former Stone Dog Cafe? at 862 Roosevelt Trail in North Windham, tearing down walls and making the bathrooms handicapped-accessible.

“We worked together to make it fresh, new, clean, and hopefully a better place to go,” DeSimon said. “It’s a great location.”

According to DeSimon, her Raymond landlords, Mary and Sonny Chipman, have decided to sell the building at 1265 Roosevelt Trail.

“They’ve decided that they don’t want to lease anymore,” DeSimon said.

DeSimon said business could pick up in the new location.

“It’s not so seasonal,” she said. “Up here when the snow flies, it dies right off. In (North Windham), it should still keep us going because of the shopping centers.”

Yet DeSimon, and her daughter, Kaitlynne, said they will miss the Raymond location. Kaitlynne, now a student at the University of Southern Maine at Gorham, has been working at the diner since she was 5, when she would sleep on the bread shelves in the back before she caught the school bus with her older brother, Matthew.

“She used to have her little pillow and blankie and fit in there before the bus would come,” DeSimon said.

“It’s been like a second home honestly, and it is going to be a lot different moving, but hopefully we can take the positive out of it and just take the memories with us,” said Kaitlynne DeSimon.

Danielle DeSimon said she has received positive feedback from customers regarding the move.

“A lot of people said they’re going to save gas because they drive that way anyway,” she said.

One counter regular, Kip Perham, an acquaintance of Ernie Cota’s, is a tad unhappy about the move.

“She will not move my stool down there that I’ve been sitting on for nine years,” Perham said.

DeSimon said she had a counter built at the new location in order to satisfy traditional customers like Perham.

“These are the people I built the counter for,” DeSimon said. “Kip, and Sally Lou and Wayne the ones that will only sit at the counter.”

In recent times, Perham has declined to sit at the Ernie Cota memorial seat – or the “king seat,” as it is known. Others who took the seat on as their own have since died, DeSimon said.

“Nobody sits in this seat anymore,” she said, “Shermie did, and then when Shermie passed, Bobby did, and then Bobby passed, and Kippy said, ‘No way am I moving to Seat One.’ ”

Deborah Cota, a Windham resident, eats with her two nieces, Haley and Kelsey Theberge, at the Danielle’s Diner counter, the former stomping grounds of her father, Ernie Cota.  Danielle DeSimon stands with her daughter, Kaitlynne, who has worked at the diner since she was 5. Kaitlynne DeSimon used to sleep on the bread shelves in the back of the diner before school.On Oct. 1, Danielle’s will formally open at 862 Roosevelt Trail, the former location of the Stone Dog Café, which closed last winter.   Danielle DeSimon, the owner of Danielle’s Diner, holds a photo of four counter regulars. DeSimon has built a counter at her new location in order to satisfy the current crop of exclusive counter sitters, she said.