IRVING, Texas — Glasses clinked and voices rose inside Po’ Melvin’s on Wednesday night — a toast, not to a milestone, but to a man gone too soon.

Daniel Gormley, the restaurant’s longtime manager and bartender, was shot and killed Sept. 29 while riding a DART train home from Deep Ellum after celebrating his 53rd birthday.

“I took off work just to be here because I had to say goodbye somehow, someway,” said David Reyes, a regular who raised a glass in Gormley’s honor.

Inside the Irving restaurant, staff and patrons wore stickers bearing Gormley’s face — the same face that greeted them for years.

“My heart just broke,” said Jasmine Slovak, another regular. “I was like — he’s gone.”

Gormley was considered the backbone of Po’ Melvin’s — a Marine veteran who treated coworkers like family

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