Customers keep her going

Kellnersville diner owner has been feeding regulars for 28 years

By: Chris Meulemans, Herald Times Reporter Correspondent               

KELLNERSVILLE — At 7 a.m. on a Saturday, things are already hopping at the K-City Diner, 1123 Main St.
Brandon Stradel, 16, and a grandson of the owner, has been pouring coffee and serving plates since 6 a.m.
His grandmother, Pat Lorrigan, has been on site since 4 a.m.

"I come in to get the bread baking, the coffee perking and the potatoes warming for the American fries," she laughs. "Then I get the sweet rolls frosted and everything else we need to open at 5:30. This is my baby and my customers would do anything for me, so I give them a place to eat."

Lorrigan is an Ohio native and moved to Shoto at age 20. She eventually moved to Green Street Road, near Kellnersville. She was working as a heavy equipment operator when she drove past the building on the corner of Manitowoc County H and Main Street that housed a milking equipment store. She told her mother,

"Someone should put a restaurant in that building," she recalls. Her mother quickly agreed and said, "Why don't you do it?" That was 28 years ago.

Lorrigan started collecting equipment, hired construction workers to build and rearrange things, and then called the health inspector. She didn't have a firm date in mind for opening, but the inspector wrote down a date only 15 days into the future.

"That got us fired up," she says. "The inspector even told the workmen to hurry up so this lady can get this business going."

Mildred Walters, Lorrigan's mother, is credited with getting much of the menu in place. "She was one heck of a cook," Pat remembers. "I learned most of what I do from her."

Everything at the K-City Diner is made from scratch, except bread, which is purchased in frozen loaves and then baked in the restaurant's ovens.

How does Lorrigan choose what is on the menu?

"I like everything on the menu," she said, "and I try to pick what our customers would like. We have lots of retirees here that come in every day. They come in to talk about work and solve the problems of the world.

They are such great people. They would do anything for you.

"When I wasn't feeling well, they would get up and just start doing the dishes for me. They would get up and get their own coffee and then pour coffee for other people. Two years ago, a pipe broke under the building and the whole crawl space flooded and water came out the windows into the parking lot. Some of my customers crawled down and laid in that cold water and got that pipe fixed. They are good, honest people. We keep the prices affordable and some people tell me that they get sticker shock when they go somewhere else."

Because it is small, the diner can put four or five specials on its board each day.

"We make up about five servings of each special," Lorrigan said. "It is like home-cooking. We aren't cooking for hundreds of people, just a few friends. When I first started this business, I realized that there was no place to take my children to eat except at the bars, or into Manitowoc. Now I live it 24 hours a day. Even when I am home working on my flower gardens, I think of what I could be doing to make it better here."

Lorrigan even grows her own peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers for the restaurant. "My husband, Joe, is in charge of the vegetables. He does a good job. We also found out that it was much cheaper to make our own rhubarb-raspberry jam. We have customers who ask to buy jars of the stuff, but I have to tell them that I have to make it last through the year. Now I have people starting to bring in rhubarb, too."

Lorrigan doesn't even have to think when asked what she likes best about owning the K-City Diner.

"It's the people," she smiles. "They are what keep me going."

And the worst thing?

"Book work!"

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