Corner Café
Life and Death in a Small Midwestern Town
We took a table on the corner next to wooden box planters with purple Salvia. The kids sat in the wrought iron chairs at one end and my wife and I on the other. Historic buildings stretched down the long hill lined with full and shapely pear trees. At 5 PM, the mid-August sun was warm on our shoulders and bare skin. For the Midwest, there has been a relative cold spell over the last few days with temps topping out in the low 80s when normally the grass has been roasted and starched yellow––the same consistency as cigarette paper.
We’d never been to this place before and, in fact, we had only decided to stay under the auspices that we would be able to find a family-friendly place to eat. We’d been shopping for knick-knacks and antiques at the Goodwill in Bonner Springs on the strip close to the main drag and the interstate. “Bonner,” as the locals refer to it, also has a small historic district that sits on limestone hillsides overlooking the river. The drive is only 20 minutes or so from our house, but it’s just far enough away and different enough to feel like a mini-vacation. Neither my wife nor I expected that we would come to care so much about this town or a few of its residents in the short three hours we’d spend there.
Neither my wife nor I expected that we would come to care so much about this town or a few of its residents in the short three hours we’d spend there.
I’d parked the car in a parking lot of a privately owned tire shop and, rather than unloading the children from their car seats, went to investigate the cafe. I walked into the receiving area, which was considerably darker than the outdoors, and peered into the dining area of the Jet Fuel Café. The place was done in the style of 1940s aviation with a fighter jet model on the wall and photos of great airplanes along the booths. I was wearing loose-fitting khaki pants and a plain white T-shirt and I felt, for a moment, as though I especially fit in, like a pilot maybe or an engine mechanic who could have gone back in time to a real street-side cafe of that time and had a few drinks without standing out.
The booths and a few chrome-trimmed tables straight from a ’50s diner at the room’s center were empty. I was greeted by the hostess who stepped out from the kitchen and saw me taking it all in. She said the restaurant had just opened for dinner and then assured me the environment was family friendly. I was already sold.
As charming as the cafe was, though, the night was too beautiful to sit indoors, so we settled on the ambiance of dining under the clear sky. Our hostess filled up my glass with ice tea and I sipped it watching a light breeze blow in the treetops and trying to imagine what it was people did 100 years ago in all these red-bricked buildings across from me. The days were much slower then and but the pressures just as great. The menus we were brought presented a light and healthy but classic fare with everything from chicken pasta Parmesan to roast beef dip sandwiches. The first page explained the owners’ reasoning for opening the establishment. Cafes simply lost their appeal as the decades passed and the days become more rushed. This place was created in an effort to recapture the timelessness of the downtown cafe.
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