By Doug Rich

June is a good month to travel through the Flint Hills of Kansas. The grass is green, the prairie flowers are in bloom and the pastures are full of cattle.

Plan your drive down scenic Highway 177 so that you come to Cassoday, Kan., around meal time and stop at the Cassoday Cafe. The cafe has been serving good meals to cowboys and passing travelers since 1879. Current owner and head cook, Dianna Carlson, has been running the cafe for 10 and one-half years, but she has lived in Cassoday, for 28 years. The cattle business brought her to this small town in the center of the Flint Hills, home to some of the finest grazing lands in the world.

The Cassoday Cafe serves as town hall, information center, and visitors bureau.

Plaques of appreciation on the wall are visual testimony to the cafe's many loyal customers. Carlson says that in 1995 a Wal-Mart truck driver pulled off the nearby interstate highway for a quick meal. He spread the word to other drivers and soon they were all stopping in Cassoday. "We have had as many as 15 Wal-Mart drivers in here at the same time," says Carlson. There are other plaques from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and Santa Fe Railroad. "All the Santa Fe boys stop in when they are working in the area." On weekends some of the drivers and other regulars bring their wives and families to Cassoday for a meal.

Besides running the cafe, Carlson also does some catering. In 1996 she fed a cast and crew that were making a movie in the Flint Hills. They were filming a CBS movie of the week called "Stolen Women, Captured Hearts," starring Janine Turner.

On the first Sunday of each month from March to November Cassoday looks more like Sturgis, S.D., than a small town in the middle of cattle country. That is the day that motorcycle riders from all over the country come to the Flint Hills and to Cassoday for the Motorcycle Breakfast Buffet. This monthly tradition started 10 years ago when a bike shop owner in Hutchinson, Kan., was looking for a centrally located place to eat when he took customers and friends for a ride in the country.

At first there would be only 25 to 50 riders showing up for breakfast. "In August of 1996 they hit me with 300 people and nearly ate me out of house and home," says Dianna Carlson. "I had one egg left when they were through."

The monthly gathering of motorcycle riders has been growing ever since. This year on the first Sunday in June she fed breakfast to 1,200 people. Quite a crowd for a town with 125 permanent residents. The record was set last year with 1,589 riders eating breakfast at the Cassoday Cafe. "I hope to beat that number this summer," says Carlson.

Those numbers only reflect the people eating breakfast. Carlson says there can be as many as 2,000 to 3,000 people in town on that Sunday. "They don't all eat breakfast," she says. "Some of them come just to socialize."

To accommodate the growing number of riders Carlson adds a concession stand outside to handle the overflow crowd. Outside you can buy a cinnamon roll, biscuits and gravy, sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit or BBQ beef. Inside there is a full line breakfast buffet featuring scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, hash browns, pancakes, French toast sticks, cinnamon rolls, cookies, muffins, and fruit.

She says the monthly rally has really put Cassoday on the map. They get riders from Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas. "We even had two guys from Alabama this summer," she says. "They drove up on Saturday, had breakfast in Cassoday on Sunday, and then drove home." A man from California planned his entire vacation around a trip to Cassoday.

Jump on your Harley or just get in the family sedan and make your way to the Cassoday Cafe. It is just around the corner.

Date: 6/17/05

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