CLAREMONT — Inside Time-Out Americana Grill is a small food pantry for people in need. The offerings are located in the entryway and include boxes of fresh produce, breads and canned goods.

Mary Koloski, the restaurant’s co-founder, started the food pantry with her son and business partner, Nick Koloski, who is also a Claremont city councilor. Now in its 14th year, the pantry has become a signature of the restaurant, and of the Koloski family’s charitable habits.

“It’s a stigma-free setting,” Nick said. “The items are right by the door. People get a bag, pick up items they would like and then they’re gone.”

Mary Koloski was a great teacher in the art of resourcefulness, Nick said. In addition to getting donations of surplus food from local farms or nonprofits, the Koloskis purchase goods themselves whenever they find a deal through their vendors, he said.

“That’s how we survived when I was growing up,” he said. “Finding and getting items of need, that’s what I learned from her.”

Mary Koloski died unexpectedly in her home on Oct. 6, 2023, while ailing from a respiratory virus. She was 68 years old.

A lifelong Claremont resident, Koloski had a reputation for being available to anyone in need, often putting others’ needs ahead of her own. In her 20s, she withdrew from nursing school to care for her ailing grandfather — and later her mother — while also raising her own children and working two part-time jobs.

At least once a year, she would host a free community dinner, preparing and cooking the food mostly on her own. She would give Christmas presents to children whose family’s finances were stretched and regularly made gift baskets at holidays, filled with treats and small presents, for her employees’ children. If a friend needed a safe place to stay because of a domestic problem, Koloski made space in her home. And she regularly listened to people’s problems and offered guidance.

Koloski was born in Claremont on Sept. 16, 1955 to Thomas and Margaret Hastings. She attended St. Mary, a Catholic school, through eighth grade and then Stevens High School. “Mary always had her head in a book growing up,” said her sister Joyce St. Martin, 66. “She was the intellectual (between us), usually reading in the house while I was outside playing.”

Koloski particularly loved Judy Blume books, but would also read the daily newspaper and Reader’s Digest “cover to cover,” St. Martin said.

After high school, she began work as a certified nursing assistant at the Sullivan County Nursing Home in Unity. She married her first husband, John Koloski, in 1974, though the couple divorced three years later, around the time her son, Nick, was born.

Koloski raised her two children — she also has a daughter Samantha Woodall, Nick’s younger half-sister — as a single parent. Around age 21, Koloski moved with her son into her parents’ home, where she helped care for her grandfather, Arthur Picard, who was blind and in declining health. “I remember where she would be feeding me in a highchair while he’d be seated at a table and she’d be feeding him in the same manner,” her son said.

Koloski had been enrolled in nursing school, but withdrew so she could give more time to caring for her grandfather, until his death in 1985. She also served as her mother’s caretaker for a few years after that, prior to her mother’s placement in a residential setting.

In addition, Koloski worked two part-time jobs — one as the cook in St. Mary rectory and the other at a clothing store at the Powerhouse Mall in Lebanon. She often brought Nick, then age 7, to the mall with her, where he would occupy himself in the backroom or, with permission and under supervision of a volunteer, visit the mall’s toy store.

In 2000, Koloski and her son, then 23 years old, opened their first restaurant, Hullabaloo, on Pleasant Street. Initially a daytime coffee and sandwich shop, Hullabaloo expanded during its 10-year run to include a nightclub, a hangout spot for people to socialize over drinks, shoot pool or listen to live music.

Wanting to focus more on nightlife and recreational offerings, in 2010 the Koloskis closed Hullabaloo and opened Time-Out Americana Grill, a bar and restaurant, in the Topstone, a former mill building on Mulberry Street. In the last 14 years, the Koloskis have added two other businesses in the Topstone, an escape room and an indoor miniature golf course. As a restaurateur, Mary Koloski was known for her gregariousness and hospitality, as well as her cooking. Many people who dropped into Hullabaloo for a sandwich would extend their visit to chat with Koloski, including New Hampshire politicians such as the late Ray Burton and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

“When Shaheen campaigned here (in 2014), she made a stop at Time-Out and asked the media who were following her for a moment’s break, so she could visit with my mom,” Nick said.

“Everyone loved Mary,” said her friend, Roz Caplan, of Claremont. “She had a unique personality. She was friendly and sweet, but wasn’t afraid to be rough around the edges or to speak her mind if she felt you needed to hear something. And she was empathetic and loving.”

Koloski was “like an unfiltered version of Dear Abby,” who didn’t shy from giving her honest opinions when people came to her with their problems, her son said.

“I actually loved that about her,” said Time-Out employee Sheila Lajoie. “There was no sugar coating with her. And I went to her for advice because I knew she would be straightforward with me.”

One Time-Out customer, Donald Aubin, of Claremont, bonded so well with Koloski during their conversations that they soon began dating, and within a couple of years were married. “We just really hit it off,” Aubin said. “It was really remarkable how well we got along.”

Koloski and Aubin particularly enjoyed fishing together and camping at the beaches of Wells, Maine, where Koloski collected seashells. “She didn’t care about fancy things; she cared about family,” her husband said. “She loved collecting seashells, Egyptian art and crystals. And I loved to see how thrilled she would be when getting a new crystal (or seashell), and to see her glow. Those simple things, and helping people, made her happy.”

The couple held a Halloween-themed wedding — Koloski’s favorite holiday — on Oct. 22, 2014. Every guest was required to dress in costume. Koloski wore a burgundy wig and a black-laced dress and veil, while Aubin came as a cowboy. They held the ceremony on the fifth floor of the Topstone building and the reception in the restaurant. Koloski insisted upon catering the entire wedding herself, cooking all the food and baking the wedding cake, though she allowed her family to hire people to serve, Woodall said.

Once a year, from 2000 until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Koloski would host a free community dinner the week before Christmas. She would plan and cook the meal mostly herself, with the help of volunteers, for up to 200 people. “She would cook seven to nine turkeys, a couple of hams, as well as side dishes (and desserts),” Aubin said. “And anybody who wanted or needed a meal knew where they could go.”

Koloski also bought Christmas presents to distribute to the children who came.

“Those dinners would tire her afterward but it was a wonderful kind of tired for her, because she loved doing it,” Aubin said. “That’s what made her happy.”

“I never saw someone work so hard to pull something off like that,” Lajoie, the Time-Out employee, said. “And she always pulled it off.”

Koloski wanted all children to feel loved and included, especially at holidays, family members said.”It was very common in our household to have (one of our) friends staying with us for an extended period of time if they were having problems at home,” Nick said. “And if I received an Easter basket, my mom made sure my friend would receive an Easter basket too. And if a friend was with us at Christmas time, she made sure that they received presents on Christmas morning.”

Lajoie, 36, has worked at Time-Out for 11 years. During that time, Koloski has treated her as if one of her own children, Lajoie said. Every Halloween, Easter and Christmas, Koloski would make a gift basket with presents and treats for Lajoie’s three children. And whenever Lajoie was going through a personal issue, Koloski would be there to listen and help, Lajoie said.

“She was like a second mom to me. She was always there,” Lajoie said. “And I think she made me more loyal as an employee because of how I’ve been treated,”

Koloski taught her children, and others, to be strong and to persevere, no matter what the challenges are — and to be empathetic toward others who are struggling, Woodall said. “She used to tell us not to be afraid of death but to be afraid of an unlived life,” Woodall said.

Patrick Adrian can be reached at padrian@vnews.c om or 603-727-3216.