Lynn’s restaurant

Remember the good ol’ days? Those were the days when you went into a restaurant and the waitstaff knew your name – and your order. Those were the days when going to your favorite hometown restaurant was just like going home for dinner. Those eateries had your favorite dishes and patrons just knew they were made with love (and a dash of something special from a secret family recipe).

One such Waynesboro hometown staple recently reopened its doors to the public.

Lynn’s Pancakes and Steaks entered its third incarnation Nov. 1 under the proprietorship of Harry and Cindy Uller.

The Ullers, of Mississippi, relocated to Waynesboro specifically to reinvigorate Lynn’s, after visiting their son, Shawn Riddle, who has lived in town since the eighth grade. The 24-year-old was expecting his first child.

During a drive through town, the family, which had previously been in the restaurant business, looked around and found the establishment up for lease.

“I told them that Lynn’s always had good food,” Riddle said. He and his wife, Ashley, and her extended family had eaten at the restaurant for years.

Harry Uller, who grew up in a restaurant business taught to him by chefs who worked for his family, and Cindy Uller, a painter and sculptor, both have family-style and buffet experience under their belts. They decided to do it.

“We made trips up in the summertime and we moved here in October,” Cindy Uller says.

But it’s under young Riddle’s advice that the restaurant be kept as closeto the first incarnation of Lynn’s as possible.
“It’s our idea to take it back to the original as much as possible,” he said.

To that end, Lynn Wease, still the owner of the property and former proprietor of the restaurant, has been enlisted to help.

“He’s helped us out a lot. He gave us phone numbers of people who used to work here to call,” Riddle says. “He was all for it.”

“They asked if they could use my sign,” says Wease. “I gave them my sign and my name to use. Maybe it’ll help them.

“The people now, they will promote the business and open up the bar again. I hope they make it.”

Wease has also shared his secret pancake recipe with the Ullers, a special family recipe developed when he opened the business in 1982.

Previous to the Ullers, the business housed Espresso Pancakes and Steaks, which was open from September to December of 2007.

“They were used to a metropolitan area,” Wease said. “They weren’t used to a hometown restaurant. They didn’t do buffets and banquets. So they ended up eliminating a lot of customers by not running them.”

Another idea the new Lynn’s used to attract its old regulars was to rehire faithful previous employees like Robert Wood, the original chef, and Muriel Simpson, a longtime waitress.

Simpson has been working for the business more than 20 years, from the days that Wease ran it, and works for the Ullers today.
Muriel Simpson remembers the Espresso owners.

“I worked for [Espresso] a week,” she said. “They fired me for socializing.

“They called my voice mail [at home].

Simpson says that when her customers did come in during her short tenure with Espresso, many of them were disgruntled at the food and told her they wouldn’t be back.

“These are nice people here. Lynn told me and I come right down, and they came and greeted me. They’re so nice. And the pancakes ... The pancakes are good. This place could be booming if everybody knows about it.”

“Muriel came with the place,” Uller says. “She’s a fixture here.”

Lynn’s is currently open Sunday through Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Wednesday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The breakfast buffet is on Saturday and Sunday, lunch buffets are Sunday through Friday and there is a dinner buffet on Saturday evenings. The last buffet is tentative and will depend upon its reception by the community. In addition to buffet offerings, there is a regular menu with breakfast, lunch and dinner items served all day (some dinner items are only available after 4 p.m.).

The restaurant can hold up to 200 people with its back dining room and downstairs dining room, which Riddle says they ultimately hope to use as a local bar and dance hall.

“Right now, we’re calling it ‘The Lounge’ until we can name it,” Uller says.

“We’re going to have a deejay, dancing and karaoke. We’ve got dart boards and pool tables and we’ll have a variety of music, from the ’60s to the present,” Riddle says, with his mom’s agreement. “We might have the biggest dance floor in the area.”

“There’ll be something for everyone,” he says.

“Not too much rap or stuff like that. We don’t want thugs in here. There won’t be no selling of drugs and if you cut it out before they get it in the door ...” says Uller. “We’ll have people watching the doors.”

Security will be tight, the mother and son say. Bouncers, door watchers, video cameras and a metal detector will be used to ensure the environment is safe.

“We don’t want no knives or guns in here. It’s our life. If the restaurant, which is our primary business, and the bar go under, then we have nothing,” Riddle says. “We’re going to hang a sign: You’re first fight is your last.”

Lynn’s is available for receptions, banquets, breakfast and lunch meetings, church and Bible studies, with some of its previous groups already vying for available time slots. A Woodrow Wilson Rehab Center group meets there along with a ham radio group and the Son’s of the American Revolution.
“We want our other groups back,” Uller says. “Along with all the regulars.”

Wease says there were plenty of regulars to be had.

“I had good faithful customers who ate there two and three times a day, all year long,” Wease says. And faithful employees who stayed with me for many years, including my son, Chip. I’m thankful to them all for sticking that long with me.

“These people seem very nice, very cordial.”

For more information, call 943-1757.