2023-11-06 23:09:02
FULLERTON, N.D. — The first thing people see when they walk through the door of the Family Way restaurant is a smiley face on the wall.
Smiley faces are on the menu, walls and floors at the Family Way restaurant in Fullerton, North Dakota.
Jeff Beach / Agweek
“Smiley faces, as you can see, are very appealing to me,” said Tony Melendez, who has been operating the Family Way with his partner, Sherry Mattis, since April, with smiley faces on the menu and on rugs.
The situation wasn’t so smiley for the restaurant in November 2022,
when the community-owned restaurant, previously known as the Ranch House, in the town of Fullerton, North Dakota, closed
while the board overseeing the restaurant looked for a new manager.
But word reached Tony Melendez, a person with restaurant experience who happened to be working at a convenience store in Ellendale, North Dakota, regarding 20 miles away.
“Every place needs a place to eat. They need somewhere to go, to socialize, to kick back, to enjoy a meal,” Melendez said. “And you want to give them a good deal.”
A staple of the restaurant is providing meals for senior citizens around Fullerton, a town of regarding 60 people. That’s a function often provided by senior citizens centers.
In the fall, there are tables of hunters, out to shoot waterfowl or pheasants. And there are pickup orders for farmers busy with harvest.
“I love the town because they support the restaurant incredible. Incredible,” Melendez says. “They’re always here. They enjoy it. I guess it helps that I know how to cook.”
Melendez is the cook and Mattis the server and baker. They have some part-time help in the bar but do the bulk of the work themselves, breakfast and lunch seven days a week, closed in the evenings on Monday and Tuesday, but open until 9 the other days, unless someone calls and asks that they stay open later.
“They’re holding labor costs to a minimum and I think that’s one way they’re able to do it is just by doing it themselves,” said Jerry Kelsh, who chairs the board that oversees the restaurant that has been community owned for more than 20 years, following a fire made the prospect of a rebuilding the Ranch House tenuous.
Lunch at the Family Way restaurant in Fullerton, North Dakota, on Oct. 26, 2023, was mostly for local senior citizens and some out-of-state hunters.
Jeff Beach / Agweek
And Melendez tries to keep menu prices down, too.
“I want all your money, I just don’t want it all today. I want it throughout time,” he says.
Melendez says he is committed to the long-term success of the restaurant and bar, including plans to buy the building and expand the restaurant.
Kelsh said the sale isn’t finalized but is in the works.
“We’re really pretty happy,” said Kelsh. A popular item has been prime rib on Friday nights.
He said one of the regulars, Don Glenn, wasn’t a prime rib fan, but decided to give it a try.
“He’s had it every Friday night since, every Friday night since he’s had a 10-12 ounce prime rib,” Kelsh said. “That’s pretty good testimony to the quality of it.”
The first person to come through the door for lunch on a cold, damp October day was Denny Coulter.
Denny Coulter, left, enjoys lunch with other seniors in Fullerton, North Dakota, on Oct. 26, 2023.
Jeff Beach / Agweek
“He even makes stuff I don’t like taste good,” Coulter said of Melendez. He comes for the noon meals and eats there in the evenings three or four times a week. He likes the salad bars and buffets.
“And the big thing I like is Sunday morning breakfast,” Coulter said. There is a Sunday brunch buffet that goes until 2 p.m.
When asked regarding the few months that the restaurant was closed from December to April.
“Well, a lot more TV dinners,” said Coulter, who goes to Oakes, North Dakota, for groceries.
Melendez is originally from Indiana and met Mattis in Ohio. He says he worked in restaurants for more than 40 years.
Anthony Melendez prepares hashbrowns at the Family Way restaurant in Fullerton, North Dakota, on Oct. 26, 2023.
Jeff Beach / Agweek
He has made upgrades in the kitchen and would like to build the bar business back up.
“It takes time to fix that,” he said. But adds that he is not going anywhere.
“I will be dying here, this is where it ends, this my last hurrah.”
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