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May 12, 2009 6:55 pm US/Eastern
KD Country: Dean's Diner
BLAIRSVILLE (KDKA) ―
It seems that travelers on Route 22 can always count on construction delays.
But there's no better place to wait out the rush than Dean's Diner.
The Blairsville landmark has served sumptuous breakfasts and down home
dinners for 75 years.
Customers like Terry and Ruthie Swindell keep coming back.
Today, they're sharing a towering slice of coconut cream pie.
Terry sums up his feelings in a single sentence: "Good food, good prices, and good service."
He might also mention that Dean's serves very good home made pie.
"Today we have apple, cherry, peach, blueberry, apricot or raisin," said waitress Bonnie as she rattles off the pies of the day without checking the menu or taking a breath, "peanut butter, peanut butter chocolate, peanut butter chocolate banana, butterscotch, pineapple, sugar free apple..."
And that's before she gets to the pies in the other bakery case.
On an average day they'll sell 25 pies.
Regis and Sheila Bechel discovered Dean's Diner when they stopped here just after their wedding.
"It was a little diner," Sheila says. "I said 'Oh, that's cute. I want to stop here.' And we did."
That was 45 years ago. They've been coming back ever since.
Waitress Penny Kiwnek's bustles from booth to booth, taking orders as her mother did years ago.
"In my family there have been five generations working at Dean's since the fifties," she recalls.
Manager Marilyn Hafer traces her family's connection even further.
Her uncle worked in the original diner in downtown Blairsville, before it moved to Route 22 in 1953.
"We have a lot of people here who are related down the years," she says. "There have been mothers, daughters, everything like that. And we become a family ourselves."
So do the customers.
The "Jolly Eight Card Club" meets here once a month.
The two foursomes while away the afternoon, playing cards and eating pie.
Among them is Janet Dean, whose late husband took over the diner from his
father, many years ago.
She says the pies haven't changed in 75 years, but quickly adds "not the same pies… the same recipes for the pies."
No matter how you cut it, Dean's Diner is a sweet slice of life.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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