"People who came here regularly were getting to know us well enough that they'd just tell other people, 'Hey, we're going over to Kathy and Bill's,'" says Kathy Frangiskakis. "The problem was, we weren't listed as Kathy and Bill's anywhere, so there was all this confusion about where we were. So early last year, we just went ahead and changed the name."
Changed it, of course, to Kathy and Bill's Diner.
When Kathy and her now husband, Bill Frangiskakis (she jokes that his last name was a fair trade, since her maiden moniker was Kamilapos), bought the restaurant space in June 1998, they didn't waste much time thinking about what to call their new eatery, instead just naming it after the bustling street on which it's located. They were too busy fixing up the spot, which had been a Mr. Steak and a Colorado Cafe before it went Mexican; every incarnation had added another coat of paint to the walls. Today those walls are white, which goes well with an eclectic collection of decorative items: Broncos memorabilia, classic-car prints, Ansel Adams reproductions and numerous dry-erase boards, three of which relate a humorous, multi-part tale about how Kathy whipped Bill into shape and made him the fine cook that he is today.
Kathy is a Colorado native; Bill had owned restaurants in Chicago and Florida before he moved to Denver in 1996. He met Kathy not long after, and they decided to open a restaurant together. "I guess you could say we took a bit of a leap of faith," says Kathy. "We opened the diner before we got married. It was so much work, cleaning the place up and trying to make it look nice, that we would never have had time to do a wedding, too. But it was fun putting it together, since the stuff on the walls is sort of like a biography of us." The rest of the decor consists of a few faux plants, vivid blue tabletops, and gray diner-style booths that have been sat in by so many customers that our butts hit wood a split second after they touched vinyl.
From the start, the word "diner" was the most important part of this eatery's name. Kathy and Bill set out to create a locals' place, one that catered to our everyday heroes -- and our everyday big eaters -- and they succeeded. At any given time in this quintessential diner, you can find out what's going on in the cities of Aurora and Denver by listening to the walkie-talkies of the dozens of police officers, firefighters and paramedics who are eating in the joint. All of them are on a first-name basis with the owners and their super-friendly staffers, who've made it their business to put out the welcome mat for everyone who walks through the door.
"The rescue boys have quite an appetite," says Kathy, who quickly adds that while some women are on the job, too, they don't tend to stuff their faces at Kathy and Bill's. "I'd have to say the biggest eaters are the paramedics. You wouldn't believe what they can put away."
And that's really saying something at this three-squares-a-day place (except Sundays and Mondays, when the diner serves breakfast and lunch only), where most plates of food cost around five bucks and look like family-style meals for at least two. (First-time customers never fail to gasp "Oh, my God" when their plates are set down.) While some dishes are better than others and a few fall short, most are sure bets for plain, workingman's fare that fills you up, does it for cheap, and often stretches into the next day. And unlike fancier places that serve the same amount of food for four times the price, Kathy and Bill's does dishes that will survive a nuking: Pepper steak works much better in the microwave than salmon encrusted in almonds and pesto.
My favorite item, hands down, was the Havana muffin, one of the breakfast specials served from 6 to 11 a.m. weekdays (the rest of the breakfast menu is available at all hours, every day). Much more substantial than an Egg McMuffin, Kathy and Bill's version buried a standard-sized English muffin under a flap of ham the size of a compact disc, four slices of melted American cheese and two eggs, and threw in a side of what Kathy admits is about "three or four potatoes' worth" of crispy-topped home fries. "The muffin's in there," our server promised when she saw me lifting the rest of the food up with my fork. "That's what everybody does the first time they get that thing."
I managed to put away the ham, the eggs and the muffin, but could only make a small dent in the spuds, which turned out to be quite tasty fried up in a skillet the next day (and still enough for two, by the way). My friend made it through much more of Leta's pita, which was about the size of a toddler's head. Stuffed with scrambled eggs, feta and bacon, the pita was delicious, with the feta adding a nice, exotic richness to what otherwise might have seemed like a bacon omelette in a bread bowl. Given their Greek backgrounds, it's not surprising that Kathy and Bill also serve an excellent gyros platter -- even if it's almost a joke that the menu describes it as a "healthy portion." Our order arrived looking like an entire gyros loaf had been shaved onto the plate; instead of tossing on just a few tomato wedges and some diced onions to augment the beef-lamb mixture, the kitchen had garnished the plate with a whole diced tomato, half a diced cucumber, half a diced onion, kalamata olives, pepperoncini and big chunks of feta. The tangy tsatsiki sauce was good with anything you dipped into it, and an enormous side of fries again separated the men from the boys.
In true diner fashion, Kathy and Bill's kitchen tries to offer a little something for everyone (even if that little something is very BIG). The Mexican offerings included a steak-and-bean burrito that resembled a newborn in his blanket, filled with tender bits of steak boasting charred edges and smothered in a gloppy but chile-packed green. The place also does traditional diner fare, including killer (read: your heart could stop at any time) chicken-fried steak -- a thick piece of meat wrapped in an equally thick batter that almost turned it into a sandwich, served with a mound of real mashed potatoes piled so high that eating it was like trying to take down a fourteener. Also on the plate was a generous side of carrots and green beans. The veggie sides were usually canned or frozen...but why bother with them at all when you could tuck into three-inch-thick slabs of meatloaf? Each slice had been thrown on the grill until it sported a crispy, charred crust that concentrated the salty, ketchupy flavors; the dish included another mashed-potato mountain to conquer.
We'd ordered the meatloaf during the diner's most value-oriented time of day -- what Kathy and Bill call the "Power Lunch." And you'd better have a powerful appetite between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., because the portions during these hours are dinner-sized, even if the price isn't. For $4.99, you get your choice of two dozen entrees; on Mondays and Wednesdays, iced tea and sodas (and we're talking jumbo sodas) are free with the power meals. But even at dinner, the same dishes cost only a buck more.
Not everything we ate was great. The beef stroganoff over pasta had a cheap-wine taste, and the Mario's pasta one of my kids tried was all watery marinara, with too many green peppers. (All kids' breakfasts are $2.99, while every lunch and dinner kids' meal is $3.99 and served in very adult-sized portions.) But the Mickey Mouse pancake -- which came with twelve thin, crispy pieces of bacon on top -- was a fluffy, syrup-soaking work of art that hung off the sides of the platter (that's platter, not plate); the ears alone were as big as your average pancake. And the chicken parmigiana over pasta was a cheese-lover's dream, so gooey and soft we checked to make sure the chicken was in there somewhere. And it was, in tender profusion.
We wanted to try the biscuits and gravy, but our doctors wouldn't let us. And while I've heard that Kathy and Bill's sometimes offers pie or something else for dessert, no one ever mentioned it, and we never saw any diners even attempt a final course.
One last dry-erase board near the door is covered with crooked handwriting that very sincerely thanks everyone for coming. "We couldn't do it without you," the sign says.
"Just make sure you get that name right," Kathy laughs. "It's Kathy and Bill's, not Bill and Kathy's."
