New restaurant in Marion offers home-style cooking

Kim Young waits on customers at the new restaurant in Marion. Edward’s just opened up three weeks ago. Laura Fowler Paulus / Free PressSeveral months ago. Mike Beneke bought the old Pizza Hut building in Marion.

“I figured I could use it for something so I snatched it up for practically nothing and held onto it,” said Beneke, a lifelong Marion County resident.

And now there is use for the building. Beneke has opened up a sit down cafe called Edward’s for those in the county that he loves to have somewhere to visit and get a meal.

“I wanted a place to get breakfast since we lost the Durham Cafe with the flooding, and Kim Young kept bugging me to open up a place for her to manage and cook in so here we are.”

Kim Young and boyfriend Joshua Hauck do most of the cooking. Kim is the manager and waitress.

“The biggest expense was wiping it all down since it had sat empty,” said Beneke. “I got all used equipment and kept the cost down and now we are up and running.”

The hours started out 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. In the first week, but the restaurant has already expanded past that now in their third week. For now, Edwards is open from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day except Sunday when they are open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. They are also open on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday they are open from 5 p.m. until they decide to close and Saturday they are open from 4 to 8 p.m.

This meets a huge need for a breakfast place as well as weekend place for folks.

“Saturdays and Sundays are the best. It’s a learning experience for all of us. I’ve taken a lot of advice from lots of people. If they don’t like something, they tell me about it and how I can improve it. Our daily specials go pretty good,” said Young.

Lawrence Rindt, who lives 12 miles north of Marion, comes in just about every day to eat and get to go food for his wife Janet.

“You get good food and plenty of it. Yesterday, the fried chicken, I could hardly eat it all there was so much. I can’t wait for the ham and beans tomorrow,” said Rindt. “I like that there is a lot of room, too, and it isn’t so crowded.”

In addition to all the home-style food, there are desserts and baked items.

“Bobby Magathan does a lot of our breakfast and baked goods for us,” said Young.

We weren’t able to get any appetizing pictures of the food since the lunch crowd was just starting to come in, but we did get a good sense of the place as regulars begin to flood in. They all kept stating the servings were large and the prices reasonable.

Young joked around with customers as she took their orders and relayed the specials.

“I haven’t been disappointed. We have a place to sit down and eat which is great,” said Bud Kelsey.

“We’re so thankful to have a restaurant,” said Tressie Kelsey.

Marion County seems to be happy with the much needed restaurant that Beneke has provided in Edward’s.

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