ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996 TAG: 9611060049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FINCASTLE
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
THE DINERS FOUND DEE MINNIX Tuesday, even though she hadn't advertised the reopening of her restaurant in a new location.
Impatient undertakers grind their teeth over people like Dee Minnix.
She just doesn't know when to say die.
For 16 years, she served up sandwiches and soda pop in the landmark downtown Fincastle gathering place, Dee's Village Deli Shoppe. Once, she turned the business over to another woman, but it quickly wound up in financial trouble. She took it back, restored its reputation and ran it for a while until she had to close again in July because her lease expired.
Tuesday, "never say die" Dee was at it again.
On Election Day, the restaurant touted on commemorative mugs as the place "where the politically (in)correct solved the problems of the world over meals and coffee" was back open for business, albeit in a new location across U.S. 220 from downtown Fincastle.
By lunchtime, the "Meeter's Wisconsin Sauer Kraut" jar on the counter was brimming with tips. The parking lot was packed.
"It just gives you kind of a warm feeling," said Botetourt County Treasurer Benton Bolton after lunch. He got that warm feeling at least twice Tuesday. He was the first paying customer at breakfast, too.
When she closed in July, Minnix figured she was out of the restaurant business for good. She spent her days baby-sitting and caring for her family, but people kept asking her if she was going to open a restaurant again.
When the Stagecoach Restaurant, located in an unlikely gray building on 220, folded, Dee decided to make her move.
Her old kitchen cohorts, Janie Baker and Tai Ruff, came with her.
"They were behind me all the way," Minnix said.
"Actually, they instigated it," said Minnix's daughter, Regina.
The new Dee's is smaller than the old one, but it's bright with a new coat of paint and new linoleum floors.
"We got the horses painted over," Minnix said, "so now I don't have to call the place Dee's Galloping Gourmet."
A lot of the new Dee's is part and parcel of the old Dee's. The red-checkered curtains came from the old place. The bright yellow table and chairs that were the favorite of the late author and Roanoke Times columnist Paxton Davis is parked right below a picture of him sitting at that very table.
Most of the old menu is there, too. If anything's missing, it's because they just haven't remembered it yet, they say.
The old patrons also are there.
Fincastle Herald Editor Ed McCoy ordered the same tuna on brown bread with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise he has always ordered at Dee's.
There were hunters, sheriff's deputies, a parole officer, a School Board member, a bank president and the clerk of Circuit Court.
Over the years, Dee's got to be the center of lunchtime life in the county seat. Everyone from state senators to sanitation workers gathered there on neutral turf for friendly debate.
A recess in a trial at the courthouse often brought the judge, both lawyers and the entire jury to Dee's for a noshing sidebar.
Minnix hasn't advertised that she has reopened but, from the crowd Tuesday, it seems she'll have plenty to do just from word of mouth.
And that's OK.
"I'm not one to be idle long, anyway," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON\Staff. 1. Dee Minnix readies the tablesby CNBMonday in preparation for Tuesday's opening day at her new
restaurant on U.S. 220 in Fincastle. By lunchtime, the parking lot
was packed. color. 2. Janie Baker (left) and Tai Ruff, cohorts of
Dee Minnix in her old restaurant, set up the kitchen Monday so as to
be ready to open Minnix's new restaurant in Fincastle on Election
Day.