LOCAL

'It's been overwhelming': Mason Depot Diner reopens 3 years after fire

Rachel Greco
Lansing State Journal

MASON - Rod Hunt didn't think that many customers would come back after three years.

The Mason Depot Diner closed on July 1, 2019. A fire in the basement that afternoon heavily damaged the historic building, a former train station built in 1902. It engulfed the basement and ate away at the floor joists. The water heater, where the Hunts believe the fire started, was located just below the depot's kitchen. 

Mason Depot Diner servers Jamie Woody (top left) and Kathy Forquer (top right) serve a family breakfast on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022, at the diner. The popular eatery in Mason recently reopened after a three-year closure due to a July 2019 fire.

There was extensive smoke damage to the restaurant's dining room and second floor. Hunt and his wife Kathy had run the eatery off Mason Street for nearly three decades and the couple initially thought the repair work would be done and the diner back open in early 2020.

Then design and construction delays gave way to a global pandemic. 

The diner, a favorite breakfast and lunch spot in Mason, sat empty, its restoration on pause for the better part of two years. Work at the eatery didn't resume in earnest until last summer, Hunt said.

When it reopened July for the first time in more than three years customers were lined up before 6 a.m. waiting for a table. What did the demand that first week back in business look like?

Hunt described it from his perspective in the restaurant's kitchen making scratch meals every day, a role he's held ever since they've owned it.

"The first week I went through seven 25-pound boxes of bacon, 70 pounds of sausage, 600 pounds of potatoes," Hunt, 60, said. "It was full. I mean, packed solid."

After a three-year hiatus and struggle to get the Mason Depot Diner's doors back open that's "a very good thing," Hunt said.

Customer Mike Kollin agrees.

"It's a huge relief for all the old timers and patrons to be able to go back to what life was three years ago before the fire," said Kollin, who held a fundraiser for the Hunts after the fire. The eatery is an integral part of the community, he said, in part because it opens at 5:30 a.m. before other restaurants have.

"When nobody else is open it's open," Kollin said. "It's just a great place to go and meet your friends. It has a character all its own, I guess you could say."

'Everything just happened'

"When are you going to reopen?"

Caution tape blocks off basement stairs from the kitchen inside the Mason Depot Diner July 11, 2019. The former railroad depot, built in 1902, was heavily damaged by the fire.

The Hunts heard that question constantly for three years, at first in the weeks after the fire when the couple, who had lived in a second-floor apartment before the blaze, was staying in a donated trailer next to the business.

They continued to hear it after they moved into a local condominium and then again after Rod Hunt started working for a local heating and cooling business.

Nothing about the diner's restoration was easy to navigate, Hunt said.

Even before COVID-19 was confirmed in Michigan in March 2020, designs submitted by an architect to the state for the building's restoration needed revision, he said. Amid the pandemic, restaurants across the state were ordered to close their dining rooms and construction projects were halted.

"Everything just happened," Hunt said. "I could write a book on what to do and what not to do now."

The Mason Depot Diner, pictured Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022.

The couple's insurance adjuster asked them early on if they planned to sell the depot. "No," Hunt remembers saying. "We want to reopen."

Delays plagued the restoration once it started last year, Hunt said, but the couple had already invested thousands of dollars of their own money into it beyond what their insurance reimbursed them.

"Little did we know it was going to be three years," he said.

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'It's so different'

In many ways reopening is like "starting all over again," Hunt said, and the restaurant industry is very much a changed landscape.

Mason Depot Diner owners Rod and Kathy Hunt work in the kitchen on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. The popular eatery in Mason recently reopened after a three-year closure due to a July 2019 fire.

The couple stocked up on pantry staples, like jelly and coffee creamer, well in advance of their reopening but there are times when supplies of items they use regularly are limited or simply unavailable for the depot's supplier, Hunt said.

The couple has to run to a local grocery store for ingredients they aren't getting daily and raise the prices on their menu.

"It's so different," Hunt said.

Still, there's plenty that hasn't changed. The depot's sausage and gravy is still a favorite dish and the Hunts are still happy to accommodate customers who ask for items that aren't necessarily on the menu.

Guests dine at the Mason Depot Diner on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. The popular eatery in Mason recently reopened after a three-year closure due to a July 2019 fire.

Regular customers the Hunts saw weekly before the fire are regulars again. They've popped their heads into the kitchen where the Hunts are cooking from time to time.

"Glad you're back," they say. "Congratulations."

Being back in the kitchen is tiring, Hunt said, but there's a lot to be grateful for, like Byron Russell, who loaned them the trailer they stayed in on the property and the condo they moved to after that. And Kollin, whose fundraising dinner brought in over $2,000 after the fire.And Dave Scutt and Ken Carlson, who have helped with the cleanup and restoration "from day one," Hunt said.

"It's been overwhelming," Hunt said.

Contact Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ .