Old favorite dish returns
Staff writer
For one morning, a favorite breakfast dish from Marion’s former Stone City Café will return to local menus.
Debbie Cook, who owned and operated the restaurant from 1988 until 2007, will prepare the café’s popular hash browns and white gravy Saturday morning at Poncho’s Food Truck during Chingawassa Days.
The dish, a longtime customer favorite, features hash browns topped with onions, cheese, and sausage gravy. Customers also can add scrambled eggs.
The idea came after hearing repeated requests from former customers who missed the restaurant’s breakfast offerings, Cook said.
Anita Seacat, owner of Poncho’s Food Truck, and Cook’s friend, surveyed customers and found many still remembered the dish years after Stone City closed.
Stone City Café opened Dec. 7, 1988, and remained in business until Cook closed it after her mother’s death in 2007.
The restaurant served breakfast all day and prepared its hash browns from scratch, boiling and shredding potatoes in-house. Cook estimated the café regularly went through several five-pound containers of potatoes each day.
Now retired after working at Barkman Honey, Cook said she occasionally helped Seacat with her food truck and looks forward to seeing former customers again.
While the appearance has generated excitement among longtime residents, Cook emphasized it would not signal a return of the restaurant itself.
“No, I’m not planning on opening the restaurant again,” she said.
Still, for at least one Chingawassa morning, Marion residents will have a chance to revisit a familiar breakfast from the community’s past.