On the next-to-last day of business at Tastee Inn & Out, the line stretched far beyond the door and into a 17-degree Friday.
By the time it stalled mid-morning — 23 orders backed up — they’d barricaded the drive thru, run out of cheese frenchees and Diet Pepsi (go figure) and at least one customer had bumped into a high school classmate, an old boss, two people she’d written stories about and three cousins on her dad’s side.
Then she fled with a pail of onion chips, fried in flour and nostalgia.
Happy, at last.
And with this advice: If you are still yearning for one last taste, go early — and don’t plan on getting in and out.
Saturday is it.
One day sooner than the owners of the 65-year-old restaurant had announced last week.
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From behind the front counter on Friday, Becky Cheeks spread the word: “My boss wants everyone to know that instead of Sunday being our last day, it’s tomorrow.â€
We’ve spilled some ink over the closing of the north Lincoln landmark.
And Becky and fellow employee Tom Meahan — who calls everyone “Sweetie†— figured they’d shed some tears Saturday.
“I won’t be able to take an order without bawling,†Becky said.
At least one letter to the editor writer gave the humble sandwich shop a boot to the backside in its last days: The carrying on about the closing of Tastee Inn represents a triumph of nostalgia over reality. Let's face it: the place is a dump.
But dumps need love too, and hundreds made a pilgrimage to 48th and Leighton in the wake of the news, causing parking lot chaos and police scanner chatter: Cars blocking the street in front of Tastee Inn …
Facebook lit up with memories and pleas: Someone buy it and save this place! Say it isn’t so! Can you at least share the recipes?!
Former employees made plans for one last visit. And at least one of them had to go to Plan B for lunch. Soup and sandwich at Cheddars.
They ran out of onion chips before she even got inside Thursday, said Nancy Jones, who spent more than 25 years putting loose meat sandwiches and fried onion wedges in the hands of hungry locals.
Cops and firefighters. Mail carriers and soldiers from the National Guard. Older ladies who made the place their regular lunch date.
“The customers were so nice and I knew practically all of them by name and they knew me.â€
The first time the 76-year-old had a Tastee sandwich was when her eighth-grade class from Osceola came to Lincoln for lunch.
“It was downtown then.â€
Who knew?
Larry Comer did. The Omaha man washed dishes at the Tastee Inn near 13th and Q when he was 16. Friday, he brought his University High Class of ‘61 classmate my old boss Al Radke — Hi, Al! — along for one last lunch.
Lucille Smith knew about the downtown Tastees, too. Her husband cooked there. But she met him in 1950 on North 48th — back when the food came out to the car — and young Everett Smith arrived at the window of her girlfriend’s coupe.
Lucille married him a few years later and became the first employee of the Town House, a fancy name for the new dining room.
“I always thought that was kind of an elaborate name for what it was.â€
Lucille quit shortly after to raise a family, and her last visit was a few years back. She didn't think the food was up to par.
“It just did not hit me like the old Tastees did.â€
She did plan to return, at her daughter’s behest, for one last photo.
“If we don’t, it’s not a big deal.â€
I hope you made it, Lucille.
Last visits are good. And a big deal, at least for the Friday crowd.
“It’s the last hurrah,†Blake Collingsworth said before ordering a sandwich and onion chips for his wife, Kathy. (Becky offered him his ticket, he considered framing it.)
“I work third shift and I haven’t been to bed yet,†said Sarah Tast, who arrived straight from an overnight shift in Omaha.
“We grew up here,†said Jeanne Evans, who also drove down from Omaha to eat with her sisters Linda Gosey and Deb Bartlett. (Cousin Jeanne! Cousin Linda! Cousin Debbie!)
Judy Hietbrink came to stock up for her brother, who picked this week to go out of town.
Michael Stewart brought his 6-year-old son and his mom, for old times' sake. (His mom and two sisters worked here.)
Trent Puhalla brought his wife for her first — and last — Tastee meal. (Crystal proclaimed her food “delicious.â€)
And Corinn Morrill — remember me from high school?! — drove all the way from Loveland, Colo., for a six-pack of sandwiches and a pail of onion chips.
“I told my husband, ‘I’ve got to go to Tastee’s,†she said.
She arrived Thursday night, and Friday morning she waited for her food in the packed Town House with her sister Diana Dreith.
They planned to share the chips and dip and soggy sandwiches with their mom, rehabbing in a nursing home.
As for the out-of-state husband?
“He didn’t understand.â€