Live in the same town long enough and you’ll eventually start referring to houses by who used to live there, and buildings by what they used to be.
If I were giving directions to someone from out of town to The Olde Orchard, I’d tell them it’s located at 326 Elm Avenue in Yukon in the Old Mills Plaza, just off of Main Street. To anyone from around here, I’d just say it’s where the Miller Grill used to be — and to a real old timer, I might even call it the old Big Ed’s.
Pulling into the parking lot, it’s hard for me not to see the plaza as it existed in the 1980s. One of the stores on the left hand side of the plaza used to be home to my parents’ computer store, Yukon Software, which closed in 1986. Next door to our store was Video Rentals, the only rental store in town that offered both an indoor putt-putt golf course and free popcorn. Sometimes, I would wander from our store over to Big Ed’s to buy a fountain drink and take advantage of free refills while playing one of the arcade or pinball machines they had near the front door.
My wife and I arrived at the Old Orchard at the peak of their morning rush, which meant waiting a few minutes for a table. While this was our first visit to the Olde Orchard it was not our first time in the building, not by a longshot. Miller Grill’s old front counter, which is not being used by the current tenants, sits in the spot where the old coin-operated boat my son loved to ride in twenty years ago used to be. The bench we sat on while waiting for an available table is where our daughter set up her Girl Scout Cookie stand roughly a decade ago. I could have kept going but within just a few minutes a table opened up. If there’s one thing that goes well with breakfast, it’s nostalgia.
If the name Olde Orchard sounds familiar, you may remember its previous location in Bethany, just a stone’s throw from Western Oaks High School on NW 23rd street. Olde Orchard has been in business since 1974. Shortly after the Miller Grill closed up shop Olde Orchard moved in, bringing the family-style home cooking they’re known for to Yukon with them.
In a town where there help wanted signs hang on the door of every other restaurant, I was not surprised to find waitstaff running laps around the restaurant as if they were NASCAR drivers. I mentally prepared myself for a long wait, but was pleasantly surprised when menus arrived and our drink order had been taken in less than a minute. Normally my wife and I would have slowly sipped on our coffee while taking in our new surroundings, but our new surroundings consisted of thirty tables, every one of them full. There’s a time to soak up the scenery, and a time to know what you want to eat by the time the waitress comes back.
For expediency’s sake I ordered one of my breakfast go-to plates, a Western Omelet with grits, toast, and a side of bacon. My wife opted for biscuits and gravy in a bowl with hash browns and an egg on top. Other potential choices included the breakfast burrito, the mixed grill, and the Belgian waffle special — multiple reasons to return.
I cannot stress enough how unfounded my concerns of receiving poor or low service was. While being busy is a great problem for any restaurant to have, it doesn’t always make for the best customer experience. For the 30 minutes we were there, the waitstaff never stopped running, and we never saw the bottom of our coffee mugs. Within two mugs — our standard breakfast measurement of time — our breakfast had arrived.
Everything we ordered arrived warm and fresh. The ham inside the Western omelet was perfectly cooked, and not a cheap or tough cut of ham the breakfast cooks occasionally try to hide inside eggs. The grits were fine as-is and better with butter, sugar, and a little salt. Toast is toast, and the bacon was cooked to perfection.
Susan and I go out for breakfast every Saturday morning and we’ve dined at a lot of different restaurants around the metro. Some of those places, like Good Gravy! and the HunnyBunny Biscuit Company, serve unique and specialized items. Other places stick to the basics, and Olde Orchard is one of those. That being said, what they do, they do well. I do want to quantify that by saying I am commenting on their breakfast offerings only; their lunch and dinner menu appears to be more extensive,
The restaurant industry has taken a pummeling over the past two years. I’m glad Olde Orchard survived, I’m glad they relocated to Yukon, and I’m looking forward to returning in the near future.