In every American community, there was once a time when “dragging the gut” was a popular teenage pastime to while away the evening hours, and the “turnaround” was usually a drive-in restaurant. In Larned from the 1950s to the ‘70s, there were two such gathering places — the “Swirly Top” Diner at one end of the drag on Trail Street south of town and the Burgerteria, known by locals as “the Burg” on 14th Street in the north. On each Friday night after the football game, and Saturday night to curfew, the circuit between the diner and “the Burg” took about 20 minutes discounting stops to “get a word from the bird,” until it was time to “agitate the gravel.”
LARNED — After decades of battling franchised eateries and the pandemic shutown with its economic aftermath, the independent restaurant is making a comeback. From the 1920s through the ‘50s, diners were a popular gathering place, for the food, the conversation and the atmosphere.
In Larned, the glass-fronted “Swirly Top” diner at 424 SW Trail St. held sway for quite a while. As Lloyd’s Drive In, the eatery had hired carhops, and was known for handing out free malts and shakes to high school football players if they won Friday nights. Other iterations followed, but it was the classic bar and tabletops of the Swirly Top that led Chad Eakin to bringing the location back to life.
After purchasing the diner on May 16, 2023, Eakin, his daughter Shabree, son Brock and Brock’s wife Caitlyn debated for a month about just what the diner should look like. Taking a cue from a primary-colored logo created for the sign marking the spot by Chance Noble, it was Caitlyn’s crush on Chad’s souped up, cherry red ‘57 Chevy that set the mood.
“Getting it all to match was the biggest challenge,” she noted. “Brock started out with the colors on the sign after Chance came up with logo. I was just wanting to move the colors on the sign into gear.
“We had ‘vision board No. 1’ and bought the stuff, but when we got it we didn’t like it, so we sent it all back.”
Chad and the family crew gutted the building down to the cinderblock walls. Only the front bar remained, and a day spent in its proximity while searching online found the answer, she said.
“We finally found a company called American Chairs out of Chicago, Ill.”, she said. “They specialize in man-caves, bars and diners. I got to select out of 10 different designs for the tabletops custom built by American Chairs, as were the diner chairs.
“In all honesty I wanted to stick with the cherry red, because of Chad’s car, and I know what it means to everybody. We wanted it to look cool like the car.”
Stirring in the look of brushed aluminum trim and corrugated metal, walking into The Diner is like stepping back in time.
On Tuesday, the breakfast rush was just finishing up as people began to gather for a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and conversation leading up to the event dredged up memories of past owners, managers and employees along with the meals they prepared.
As of now, the menu is handwritten and tacked up on the wall. Caitlyn explained that they were waiting on the retro-style being fabricated from North Carolina, which was recently devastated by hurricane Helene. “We understand and we will wait and pray for them,” she said. “They’ve been through a lot.”
Chance Noble and his wife Michelle will manage daily operations, with Chance in the kitchen and Michelle taking orders and working the register. Right now, they are serving breakfast from 7-10:30 a.m. and then lunch to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The hours are subject to change as the business gets settled in.
The Diner will serve standard diner fare for breakfast and lunch, as well as soft-serve ice cream, sundaes, and shakes.
Chad Eakin, before cutting the ribbon, noted that it took a lot of people working together to bring a beloved memory back to life. “We’ve been missing something, and we got together and brought it back,” he said. Meanwhile, all this talk about diner fare is making this writer hungry. I’m off to have Chance “burn one, drag it through Wisconsin and cut the grass.”
Later, alligator.
