Bill Knapp's

As I was eating my lunch today, for some reason I got all nostalgic and my mind drifted back to the days when I worked as a busboy and dishwasher at Bill Knapp’s restaurants. I worked at their Roseville, MI location for almost two years, from 1993 until 1995 when I graduated high school.

For those of you not familiar with Bill Knapp’s, they were a predominantly Midwestern chain founded in the late 1940s and went defunct in 2002. While I can’t speak for the clientele in the 1940s through the early 1980s (I was born in 1977), I can tell you that the folks I saw there in the later 1980s and all of the 1990s were old timers. Not merely senior citizens, but geriatrics. It was no wonder that Bill Knapp’s chain had earned the title “God’s waiting room.” It was not uncommon to see folks out in the foyer and dining room with their oxygen tanks, walkers and canes.

During my couple short years there, I found it an endearing place. The people were fantastic to work with, the clientele were good people and the food was very good. I heard a lot of people call the food “bland,” “soft” and “pre-chewed” (obviously a dig at the age of the clientele), but I really thought their food was good. There were a couple items that I thought may have been a bit on the bland side, but overall I thought they had a terrific menu.

Since employees received a generous discount on their meals, I often ate at my mid-shift break. My favorite was the East Coast Clams Hearty Meal Deal (for those who worked at Bill Knapp’s, this was simply referred to as “D-Clam” when submitting the order to the kitchen), which included soup, salad, a generous helping of fried clams and the FANTABULOUS au gratin potatoes. And true to the hearty meal deal moniker, dessert was included. And who could pass up that dear chocolate cake with ice cream and hot fudge? Not me!

That six-inch chocolate birthday cake was a staple that helped make Bill Knapp’s famous, and it clearly endeared itself in the hearts of the many patrons to pass through Bill Knapp’s doors in its 54-year history. To see that dear cake pass into oblivion would’ve been a travesty, so it was awesome to see Awrey’s bakery and Meijer team up together to rescue it and allow its legacy to live on. I’m pleased to see that Awrey’s continues to make the cake using Bill Knapp’s original recipe. And to see that it’s trans fat free is even better. :)

I guess I’m just someone who thinks that we need to preserve our history. The other day the missus and I were looking at pictures of an old stadium being demolished. Or I read about a historic building downtown being razed. As the webmaster for the DeTour Reef Light Preservation Society, which restored and preserves the DeTour Reef Lighthouse, I am a firm believer that we need to preserve some aspect of our past, to remind us of who we are. Far too often we just want to tear down the old to build something new.

So thank you Awrey’s and Meijer for preserving at least some part of my past.