For Nick DeGaitas, co-owner of Nick and Joan’s in Hoxsie Four Corners, it doesn’t feel like 40 years since serving their first customer.

The couple opened the breakfast business on March 14, 1984. The two are still going strong, working alongside daughter Michaela Boadih and servers Antonia Anthony and Allie Alfonso-El-Sayed, who Joan said she considered to practically be family, on their anniversary this past Thursday.

Nick said the business started after he and Joan, newly married, moved to Warwick. Nick’s father was the owner of John’s New York System, a restaurant based in Providence, and Nick worked there for a while before starting his own place.

“I was commuting from Warwick six days a week to go open up my father’s restaurant at five o’clock in the morning,” Nick said. “After doing that for a couple of years, I was wondering if we could open a place in Warwick. So we looked and we looked and we looked, and we found this place.”

The opening, Joan said, was a major risk for the two, who had just $100 in their checking account. Still, they made it, with customers coming in not too long after the business’s opening.

The restaurant cultivates a family atmosphere, Joan said, which is what has driven the restaurant forward throughout its existence. Hanging prominently on the fridge is a photo of the couple, their four kids, and many grandkids, and the walls of the business are covered with pictures of customers.

“I love working with my husband,” Joan said. “I feel like we’re entertaining everybody at our house. Neither one of us feels like we’re doing a job. We want people to feel like family.”

That’s an atmosphere that the two said that they’ve seen fewer businesses cultivate in recent times, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed many local businesses worldwide as casualties. However, Nick and Joan’s survived with strong support from its regulars, with multiple regulars giving the two money without asking for any food in return.

“We put up a good fight, and we’re still living,” Nick said.

The celebration officially started at the restaurants’ opening at 5 a.m., but continued throughout the morning until closing at 11:30. The business’s anniversary was also commemorated in the General Assembly by state Representative Camille Vella-Wilkinson.

Throughout forty years, the couple has seen a lot. What sticks out most to Nick and Joan, is seeing different generations of Warwick residents come in and enjoy one of their meals in the morning.

“Seeing the same kids coming in as little kids, then coming in as grownups with their kids [is special],” Nick said. “There’s a lot of memories there.”