I grew up in Cincy. My parents both worked at UC College of Medicine, so we spent a lot of time in Clifton. Myra's was a restaurant we liked, but it didn't achieve legendary status until I started med school at UC in 2005.
I lived in Clifton and my med school friends and I were the coolest nerds...and we grew to love Myra's. We would eat there often. My favorite menu items were the soups and I was always impressed and mesmerized that Myra's had 8 soups on the menu every single day. One day, we all went to Myra's and in a fit a genius we decided not to order a single entrée, but rather to order every single soup on the menu (an order that became known as "the Board").
After finishing all of the soups we took a selfie picture under the hanging soup menu, saluting with spoons instead of our hands. We then framed the picture and secretly put it on the shelf at the restaurant. No one noticed anything out of place and it stayed there for years. Every time we walked into the restaurant we would find the picture and laugh so hard. That day became an epic in our memories. We made up a fake superhero movie about the 3 of us eating soup.
The last time I was at Myra's in 2014, I saw the notice that it was going to close. So I recovered the picture (my friend has it in his house to this day) and I took 1 copy of the menu for my own cooking adventures. I've traveled the world quite a bit since then and currently live in Hawaii.
There is nothing like Myra's here, and I fear there will never be anything like Myra's again. Most restaurants today are all big franchises and chains, some others are extremely expensive and fancy. Myra's was affordable, authentic, healthy, and intimate. I remember seeing Myra in her compression socks working every time I ate there. You would never see that nowadays.
I don't want to sound like a grumpy old man (I'm only 40!), but I have a lot of nostalgia for Myra's and Clifton in the 90's and 00's. The world is always changing, but Myra's will always hold a special place in my heart. ~ Kareem