“It looks like there are (now) somewhere close to 4,300 restaurant licenses in Kansas,” Mills says. In 2016, there were 7,300 food licenses issued in Kansas – which included restaurants, convenience stores and concession stands, according to records from the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association.īefore the pandemic began, Kansas had nearly 5,000 restaurants – many located in small towns, says Adam Mills, president and CEO of the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association.
If you have traveled across Kansas within the past decade, it is easy to see how the rural economy has taken a hit.Īlmost weekly, there is news of restaurants, implement dealers and even grocery stores closing in small towns. These café owners must have really loved their community to go above and beyond in the ways that they did.” “And if people live far from a grocery store, maybe getting takeout from a café is what they could do – if the café stays open. Local restaurants in tiny towns across Kansas are a mainstay. It is not uncommon to travel 20 to 40 miles for groceries. Rural Kansans, she says, can often live in food deserts. “Food is still something you have to have,” even during a global pandemic. Small-town restaurants are often the life force of a community. “That’s the thing with small-town restaurants,” says Marci Penner, director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation based near Inman and a promoter of rural culture. Credit: Jeff Tuttleįor a time, Mom’s Bar and Grill was closed. It might be Mom’s to just about every patron who drops in at the Seward eatery, but for 10-year-old Ella Devine, it could be Grandma’s, or even Dad’s. On December 30, 2021, Carolyn Devine died from COVID complications. “But most people got their food to go and Mom, being Mom, kept it held together,” Devine said. When they were done, they called and the girls went out, picked the stuff up and brought it back in. “They backed it up in the parking lot here – placed their order over the phone and the girls (the waitresses) took their drinks and food out. “She had customers who came down from Great Bend in an RV,” Lee Devine says. When the pandemic hit, forcing shutdowns, customers briefly stopped coming.īut Mom kept cooking, making meals to go. Think of it as a rural “Cheers” where everybody knows your name – and has for generations. “You go there, and you know exactly what’s on the menu for that particular day.
“The one thing I can tell you about Mom’s is that it is a constant,” says Mitch Minnis, president of Minnis Chapel Inc., with funeral homes in St. People came for her hamburgers, pork tenderloin sandwiches, fried mushrooms and country fried steaks.įarmers, lawyers, retirees and area families were loyal customers, often packing Mom’s at lunch and dinner, and especially on the weekends. Known mostly by word of mouth, she soon was drawing customers from a 50-mile radius. Both sides featured homemade food, slushy beers and plenty of banter. But when Mom’s opened, Mom wanted the place to be a little different – more substantial and certainly more of an anchor for Seward, population 62.īuilt in the architectural style of a Morton building – those utilitarian metal buildings used for agricultural and commercial purposes – her restaurant emphasized cleanliness throughout, white and plenty of light on the family side, paneled wood on the bar side with deer heads and beer signs strategically placed. It was somewhat atypical of a small-town restaurant in Kansas – two mobile homes placed in an “L” formation. There had been a café in Seward previously, called the J&J Restaurant. “Everybody just started calling her ‘Mom.’ So, when they started this deal (in Seward), it was just Mom’s Bar and Grill.” “You know, she was always cooking and baking,” Devine says. Whenever one of her co-workers celebrated a birthday or other milestone, she would bake a cake or make something special, says her son, Lee Devine. Block party puts spotlight on Afghan culture, collaborationĬarolyn Devine first earned the nickname “Mom”decades ago when working at a Great Bend packing plant.Lack of officers hampering Wichita police department’s efforts.One landlord files a quarter of evictions in Sedgwick County.Communities of Color and Law Enforcement.
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