“A little nostalgia for the old folks.” — Frank Zappa, 1968, “Lumpy Gravy.”
If there’s such a thing as a city’s capital site for nostalgia, it has to be ye olde Auction House Cafe in Wayland.
The little blue box building just north of the city limits on Division (10th Street) has been feeding local folks since 1936, and though trends these days are for franchise and specialty and ethnic eateries, the cafe still puts a lot of emphasis on traditional fare with strong local connections.
Kim Miller Powers, owner and proprietor, herself is a strong local connection. She’s a 1987 Wayland High School graduate who earned all-state accolades in basketball and at one time owned four school records in track.
Powers has operated the Auction House Cafe for the past eight years and she acknowledges that it hasn’t been easy, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The small size of the restaurant made it a serious target for closure during the health crisis. Had it not been for the compassion and financial support of an undisclosed individual client, it might have gone under.
The Auction House Cafe seemed to be born out the need to feed the many customers who flocked to the Wayland Livestock Auction next door. But Powers indicates that the Tuesday auctions do not produce the busiest days, despite the fact the eatery is open from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. that one day each week. The cafe is open only from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. other days and is closed Sundays and Mondays, making it mostly a restaurant business for breakfast and lunch.
It has gained quite a reputation for its breakfasts, particularly the old-fashioned quality of meat and potatoes omelets and regular fare of eggs, toast, bacon and ham.
Powers is proud of the strictly local eggs and the down-home presentation of breads.
But it’s more than that.
Powers said she estimates that about 80 percent of her business is made up of repeat patrons who don’t live far away. Obviously, a lot of these patrons like the food and opportunities to break bread, converse and argue with people they know over coffee and food.
Perhaps one of the most famous of these kind of patrons was venerable longtime girls’ basketball coach Zack Moushegian, who was Michigan’s second winningest girls’ basketball coach when he retired in 1999. He also bled maize and blue for the University of Michigan and engaged constantly in humorous banter with Michigan State fans in the small confines.
It should surprise no one that Kim Miller Powers was an all-stater on one of Zack’s best teams. She and so many others, including my sister Kelly, speak glowingly and wistfully about the legend that Zack was as a coach and a comedian.
I knew Zack longer than anybody else around here, except for wife Judy, because he lived downstairs from me at Campus View Apartments on the Grand Valley State University campus. He was the real estate agent who sold Coleen and me our house, and in gratitude he and Judy provided us with my first experience at a Japanese restaurant in 1986.
I was lucky to be able to interview Zack for a three-part series about how it was back in 1976 when he took over the reigns of a basketball program that had gone 0-21 in the year previous to his arrival. He came through with a humorous and very instructive account of the transformation of dainty girls who became athletic women because of the infamous Title IX.
He died in 12012, just after I published the series.
There were other local dignitaries who dined there almost daily as well. One was veterinarian Dr. Kenneth DeWeerd, who was present one day when I brought Townbroadcast columnist Barry Hastings to lunch there. After I identified him, Barry went over to him to tell him how much his lengthy service meant to his community, Barry left him crying crocodile tears.
Another local celebrity I met for lunch at the Auction House Cafe was Jeff Salisbury, and we’d both walk to the eatery and discuss the latest scuttlebutt.
It was only this morning that I returned to the scene of all of these crimes because on Mondays the cafe is closed, but open to family or work reunions. The Young-Goodwin Reunion occurred at the site Feb. 3 and it still featured the he-man breakfast selections and solid quality, along with the terrific hostess with the mostess, who said simply that she really likes to cook as the reason why she keeps it going.
As I said at the beginning of this column, it’s a step back into the nostalgia of bygone days. May it live on for a long time under the same values.
