Most wakes aren't held over breakfast, but this group is used to getting up early.

They've assembled over bacon and scrambled eggs to say goodbye to each other and to the place that brought them together.

The Centre Mall Walking Club is no more, a victim of the new way to retail, the Big Box.

Gone is the great hall, the climate-controlled common space. They don't build that kind of shopping complex anymore, and now they're starting to tear the old ones down. The wreckers come soon for the Centre, a merchandising marvel when built in 1955.

"They're taking away our mall and we feel sad," says Mattie Buntain, who's coming up on 90. On this morning, she got in her in blue Toyota at eight and drove over to her sister's. That's Mae Lavis and she's 92. Both have been widows for decades.

Breakfast isn't until nine, but they want to be at Daniel's Restaurant early. The tables go fast.

The place is soon packed. Most are seniors, but Mattie and Mae are most senior. They're charter members of the club. It started about 20 years ago, but fitness for these two predates that.

The first-ever British Empire Games -- now the Commonwealth Games -- were held in Hamilton in 1930. Mae was there, running the relay and the sprint.

She shared her secrets on swiftness with her little sister and in the early years of the mall club they won a certificate for their fast times around the circuit.

The two, wearing name badges and bronze club pins, step away from their eggs long enough to show how it's done. They're off down the main concourse, turning heads all the way.

They follow the long brown line of tiles. If you took that past every store, up and down every entrance corridor, it was a 1.2-kilometre track. Mattie and Mae used to do that six times per outing.

The course got shorter a few years ago because the ailing mall lopped off the arm that led to a former food court and Kmart store.

Now the sisters -- everyone wants to know if they're twins -- find three laps are plenty.

We're back at the breakfast table. Daniel's Restaurant opened 20 years ago, just as the club was getting under way. Angela Cutaia has run the place nearly all that time. Daniel is her dad's name.

Her eyes are moist today. "What's going to happen to all these people?" she asks.

She was offered a place in the new Centre Mall, which will be a main course of big boxes, strips of stores on the side.

"I wasn't comfortable with that," she says. And she would likely have to compete with chains, perhaps a place like Boston Pizza.

Many of her staff have been there from the beginning and are hanging in until the end, which comes at midday this Sunday.

Everyone says the walking club couldn't have happened without Shirley Robillard.

She retired from a job in shipping and receiving, then committed to being at Centre Mall from 7:30 to 10:30 every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. She did many jobs, most important the safe stowing of coats and purses so the walkers could stride free of all encumbrances.

Now mall manager Wayne Roberts is at the front of the restaurant, at a table laden with prizes. That's a regular feature, and last week Mattie took home three bars of lavender soap and a pot holder.

She's striking out this time. But suddenly a cheer goes up. Mae has won the big prize, the 50/50 draw. She counts it out -- $64. Everyone agrees it's a great finish.

Mattie and Mae head for the door. They say that for now they'll walk around Gage Park.

But what happens when fall gives way to winter?

Well, both still have their own houses. The sisters' plan -- though they say it will certainly be second best -- is to rise early each morning, turn on the old songs on AM 740 and march lively round and round the basement.

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For a video ramble through Centre Mall in its dying days, visit thespec.com.

StreetBeat appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

pwilson@thespec.com

905-526-3391