Career employees, owners help guide Fryn’ Pan to golden anniversary

Justin Bovee was in high school when he started working at the Fryn’ Pan on East 10th Street as a bus boy. Today, he’s one of three owners.

Another co-owner, Stan Mitzel, also bused tables at the restaurant as a high school student. It was his first job too.

Mark Oren was a high school student in Wahpeton, North Dakota, when he began washing dishes at the Fryn’ Pan there. He went to college and tried another job, briefly. Today, he’s the third co-owner.

Sense a pattern?

All three men — and many others who have notched at least a decade of employment at one of the seven family restaurants in the three-state chain — have stayed because at Fryn’ Pan, they can be part of a family, Bovee said.

“You’re family. Once you start moving up the ranks, you’re just family,” he said. “It is the theme. All of our GMs (general managers), they started in a low position and worked their way up. It’s what we do. We try to train every young person to take our job someday, but if they go off someplace else, that’s rewarding too.”

When the first restaurant opened in Wahpeton, it was part of the Country Kitchen franchise. Franchisees Mike Kearns and Francis Kukowski started the K&K Management ownership group. They expanded to a restaurant in Yankton, followed by three in Sioux Falls, one in Moorhead, Minnesota, and the seventh in Fargo in 1984.

The restaurant on East 10th Street was the first in the city to open, and on Wednesday it will celebrate its 50th year in business with a breakfast special from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at long-gone prices: $1.99 for two eggs, two pancakes and two strips of bacon.

That’s the Fryn’ Pan special.

“I don’t remember when we’ve had breakfasts for $1.99,” Bovee said. “It’s been that long.”

Bovee’s history with the Fryn’ Pan goes back to almost half its 50 years of existence. He started on Mother’s Day 2000, after sitting through an interview with hiring manager Kim Blackburn just a few days earlier.

“He gave me a shot and said ‘Be here Sunday. We’ll show you how to bus tables,’ so that was it,” Bovee recalled. “It was my first job obviously, and I was really quiet, really shy. You get a Sunday, and you’re working with 30 people, and you see the size of the restaurant, how many people are in here all day. I was just scared.”

But not of the job itself. He loved performing the tasks assigned to him, of cleaning up and helping others.

“I loved that job,” he said. “I still bus tables to this day.”

From bus boy, Bovee became a waiter, then an assistant manager. In 2007, he was promoted to run his own store, the Fryn’ Pan at 12th Street and Western Avenue. After 10 years there, he moved to the 41st Street location for a couple of years.

Other changes have taken place over the years. Kukowski had served as an investor with Kearns running the stores. Kukowski eventually sold his investment to Bob Fischer, who was the company president when Bovee started. Kearns retired in 2000; Dave Studel came in then, joining Fischer and Rick Weisser, who started as an accountant and moved on to partner.

By then, the Country Kitchen name was long gone, replaced with Fryn’ Pan in May 1981. Kearns and Fischer decided on the spelling, eliminating the “i” in frying and replacing the “g.”

“That’s our own thing, I guess,” Bovee said. “I have to explain all the time to people, there’s no ‘i’ and there’s an apostrophe.”

The three current owners don’t worry much about titles, but if they have to be assigned, Mitzel is the president, Oren the vice president and Bovee secretary-treasurer. Bovee supervises the Yankton and 41st Street stores, Oren the 10th and 12th street locations, and Mitzel oversees office duties. A supervisor is in charge of the northernmost locations.

Each Fryn’ Pan location — open 24 hours a day — has a different personality based on the clientele that frequents it, Bovee said.

“This store, it’s got a loyal following of customers from Brandon and Rock Rapids, Iowa, and the whole east side of Sioux Falls,” he said. “There’s good people at all of them. And good people is the reason why I didn’t go off and pursue my dream in the Army or become a police officer or whatever. Back then, I fell in love with the people aspect of the business. Like, I had fun at work all day, and they paid me for it. It’s crazy.”

Diners come in for the Fryn’ Pan’s homemade soups and freshly made salads, Bovee said. Every Thursday, the Fryn’ Pan offers knoepfle, a German potato dumpling soup rarely found anywhere else in Sioux Falls. Six gallons will be slurped up by the salad bar’s 11 p.m. closing, Bovee said.

“When I started back in 2000, at least from my recognition, there wasn’t a set day for knoepfle soup, so everybody would call: ‘When are you having knoepfle again?’ I think it was Stan who said every Thursday, and it took off from there,” Bovee said.

Fryn’ Pan cooks cut their own vegetables and make their own dressings for the salad bar. They also offer treats such as chocolate mousse and cream-pie salad, made with leftover filling from homemade pies topped with whipped cream. Desserts like pie, of course, also are homemade.

And they’re made and served by people with decades of experience.

In Yankton, a server just retired after 50 years. The prep cook on 10th Street, Timmy Blackburn, has been there 30 years. He follows in the footsteps of John Wegehaupt, who also spent three decades there. James Jongewaard, a fry/prep cook, is coming up on 30 years, as is server Audra Tanner.

In total, the company employs almost 400 people, with about 180 in Sioux Falls alone.

The Fryn’ Pan plans to be in business as long as possible, although change may be coming. Plans to redo the interstate interchange could infringe on the 10th Street location’s parking lot. The 41st Street location also went through a difficult couple of years while the diverging diamond interchange was constructed in that area.

But the partnership is optimistic.

“We just plan on being here for as long as we can be,” Bovee said. “Fifty years is a long time, but we want to take it further than that. Hopefully, I’ll be long gone but the Fryn’ Pan will continue. Good food, good service, training people through the ranks, promoting from within.”