By Thelma Taylor

"When Bob Braun (WLW TV star) comes, I go to the kitchen and fix brown beans and banana salad if they are not on the menu," Mrs. McKnight told me one evening while I was eating at her restaurant. This was not something Mrs. McKnight did just for celebrities. I went in one night and made the comment, "I was hoping you'd have cornbread. I'm in the mood for it." This was 30 minutes before closing time.

Mrs. McKnight said, "Judy, go fix some cornbread." I insisted that it really didn't matter. I was more than satisfied with what was on the table, but I got a whole basket of cornbread with the regular meal of two meats, nine vegetables and salads, and a choices of iced tea, coffee, milk or water. This was put on the table whether there was one customer or 10. There was no limit to the amount of food that a customer could eat. Everyone was told, "Eat all you want. If you leave hungry, it's your own fault."

In the 1960s, she charged $2.00 a meal. She paid Doris Kelly 45 cents an hour and gave her her wages when she left work each day. Judy Bennett, who worked for her in later years, was paid 70 cents an hour and was paid each day. The cooks and waitresses could eat all they wanted while they were at work. Kelly said that was nice, but everyone was so busy there was little time to eat.

The restaurant was open 364 days a year and closed on Christmas Day. Mrs. McKnight started work at 4:00 a.m. and finished her day at I 1:00 p.m. The restaurant was moved to six different locations during its almost 40 years of service to Cynthiana. Location did not matter. Business was always brisk. Mrs. McKnight never advertised.

She said people who ate at her restaurant told others who carne to see if they were telling it right. McKnight's reputation was spread over a wide area. A Catholic priest from a boy's camp on an island west of Victoria, Canada, stopped by each time he went to Florida to spend his vacation. He decided he wanted to treat his boys, so he brought them to McKnight's.

Some celebrities who made McKnight's a regular stopover were Tennessee Ernie Ford, Groucho N4arx, N4arian Spellman and Bonnie Lou. They ate right alongside the farm hands, factory workers and college students. College students would bring their dates to McKnight's because it was the only place they could afford to order a big meal. Many times bus loads of draftees during World War 11 would eat there. There were reservations for large groups, but many times the buses just appeared and the tables were filled immediately with home-style food. Mrs. McKnight was proud of saying, "If they go away hungry, it is their own fault."

Although she served plain food, she knew what she wanted and refused anything but the best product. One day, a cook came to her in the restaurant and told her that she had been delivered a certain type of soup bean and the supplier had said he couldn't get the kind she always requested. She said, "Give those back to him and tell him to get what I want. He knows I take no substitutes."

Her customers knew that, too. The food was always delicious. She started cooking with her grandmother. He grandmother put her on a box in a chair at a table to break eggs, peal potatoes and chop apples. She hated housework, but loved to cook. She had an extensive collection of recipes. When her husband left her, she had no job skills to support herself. Her doctor asked her what she liked to do. She said, "I love to cook." He said, "Start a restaurant."

There were plenty restaurants in Cynthiana at the time, She knew she'd have to do something different. She developed her own style of home cooking with all you can eat and reached astronomical success with it.

My mother-in-law made her first trip out of the county to Washington, D.C. to visit her daughter in the 1950s. She was scarred to death. A man sitting beside her on a bus struck up a conversation by asking her where she was from. She said, "Cynthiana."

He said, "Oh, that's where McKnight's is.' That took away her fear of the big city. A stranger to the small town was seen eating regularly at McKnight's. A native asked, "Do you live here. "

"Yes, he replied - at meal time."

Mrs. McKnight received letters, cards and gifts from all 50 state, Mexico, Canada, Germany, England and Australia. She display them for her customers to enjoy. She had many offers to buy the restaurant from large chain restaurant companies. Her answer was always No.

She said, "They would never know how to treat my customers."