APRIL 19, 1989
Dick King was sitting at the counter eating a pancake when I entered Gordy’s Cafe on Gateway Drive Thursday morning. His law office is nearby. King is one of the many regulars who stop in at Gordy’s. I sat down beside him while waiting for Constant Companion. We talked about the pancake. King said it was good, but it was too big.
The waitress on duty was Bev Egstad, who has been at Gordy’s for three years. She knows most of the customers on a first-name basis. So does the other waitress, Carol Hook, who comes in at 10 A.M.
While Bev took orders and poured coffee, Ruth Jensen was working like a robot at the grill. She would crack eggs, fry hash browns, butter English muffins and toast. She would go back and forth from the kitchen to the cooler. She was in perpetual motion.
Gordy’s is a one-of-a-kind place. It’s homey, with red-checked cafe curtains on the windows and a row of hanging plants. People park their cars in the unpaved parking lot in a scattered pattern that makes me think of pick-up sticks. The long counter, which seats 16, is covered with pink tile that has splashes of gray and white through it.
I ended up ordering two scrambled eggs and a toasted English muffin. When CC showed up, he ordered the breakfast special of two eggs, toast, hash browns and bacon for $1.99. The coffee was extra.
Everybody seems happy to be at Gordy’s in the middle of the morning. The traffic in and out is steady. The waitress knows without asking who wants peanut butter with their toast. She also knows who wants jelly, and what kind they like best.
When Ruth had a break from the grill, I asked her about the business. She said she and her husband, Terry Jensen, have been leasing Gordy’s for the past eight years from Gordy Hanson, East Grand Forks. He’s retired. The Jensens also operate the coffee shop in the Dacotah Hotel, and last year took on a third operation—the snack bar in the new Home of Economy department store.
Breakfast business is brisk at Gordy’s. Then it goes downhill until noon. The restaurant bustles when customers stream in for “dinner.” Last Thursday, the choices were a Salisbury steak dinner, $3, soup and a sandwich, $2.50, or chicken strips with fries, coleslaw and a roll for $2.99.
“Just home cooking,” Ruth Jensen said. She cracks her own eggs for breakfast, mixes her own pancakes, makes her own soups and peels and mashes potatoes for the dinners and hot sandwiches. When she finishes a day behind the stove, she doesn’t feel like cooking at home, she said. She and her husband like to go out to dinner at other Grand Forks restaurants. Rarely do they have time to get out of town.
“Minneapolis is about the farthest we’ve gone,” she said. “Once we rode our motorcycles to Duluth.”
Marilyn says, “Gordy’s Cafe faded away from Gateway Drive some time ago.” The Jensens continue to operate Gramma Butterwicks.