MORAN — For the past three decades, Kirk Dwyer has made himself quite at home in Moran as owner/proprietor at Chancy’s Grill and Shake.
And for whatever reason, Dwyer never thought much about work anniversaries.
He rolled past the 10, 20, and even 25-year marks without as much as a second thought.
Until now.
“It just never dawned on me,” he said this week. “Over the last few months, I just realized, I’ll be here for 30 years. It’s crazy how time sneaks up on you.”
The rapidly approaching anniversary arrives Saturday, Sept. 3, offering Dwyer an opportunity to reflect on getting his start in the business, working through a pandemic and other little lessons he’s learned along the way.
And it all started here because he was thirsty.
REWIND a bit, to the spring of 1992.
Dwyer, then 27, was making a good living as a unit manager and area supervisor for the Wendy’s fast food chain.
He’d been a part of the franchise since he was a high-schooler, and it was opening its doors in his native Fort Scott in 1983.
Before that, Dwyer worked part-time at a burger joint not far from his home.
“I thought, I kind of like this,” he said. “This is kind of fun, cutting Suzy Q’s, frying hamburgers. It helped that I had cool guys to work for.”
With that foundation, Dwyer was in high school, and in need of a job to pay for his car.
So he applied at Wendy’s.
The owner hired 69 employees before the restaurant opened, Dwyer noted. “And I was number 69. The owner told me, ‘You’re the last person we’re gonna hire after we get this open. Within 30 to 90 days, we’ll probably only have half this many people.’”
The owner meant it as a warning; don’t get comfortable.
Dwyer saw it as an opportunity.
Within two years he was in upper management.
He found himself a fast learner, and he was teeming with questions.
“I didn’t just want to run the cash register or cook that hamburger,” Dwyer said. “I wanted to know what operates the place. The investment, the money. From the outside looking in, you’re making millions of dollars. At least that’s what you think when you’re 18.”
But as he learned the inner workings about such concepts as overhead costs, maintenance budgets and payroll, Dwyer quickly realized there was more to it than burgers and fries.
“I never went to college,” he said. “Wendy’s was my education. I didn’t realize I knew math. I’d always enjoyed math class as a kid, but I didn’t really like it. Here, I realized I was kind of a numbers guy.”
As his responsibilities grew, Dwyer’s job as an area supervisor meant traveling frequently across southeast Kansas, and into Missouri and Oklahoma.
The demands on his time prompted Dwyer to find something new.
BUSINESS opportunities arose, but Moran wasn’t on his radar. Heck, if Dwyer is honest, he would admit he’d probably never heard of Moran, despite growing up 30 miles to the east.
“We used to play ball in Iola, Parsons, Chanute, all over,” he recalled, many trips which meant passing by Moran, but without as much as a second glance. “When you’re young, you just really don’t pay attention to towns. You’re just on the bus tormenting the girl next to you.”
Dwyer was well aware of Burlington, and a potential business opportunity there. He was hoping to take over a Sonic Drive-In there.
But while en route to Burlington for an interview, Dwyer’s thirst beckoned, which meant stopping at a truck stop at the intersection of U.S. 54 and 59 at Moran.
As Dwyer was buying his bottle of water, he caught the attention of a friendly enough face standing in line.
Marita Bigelow, whose husband Slick ran Bigelow’s Dairy Spot across the street, sensed she knew Dwyer already.
“She asked if I was who I was,” Dwyer chuckled. “I said, yeah. She said, ‘Gosh, you should look at this building across the street.’”
The Bigelows were nearing retirement and looking to sell.
“I had no intention of buying a place,” Dwyer recalled. “But as I got to my car, I just sat there and thought about it.”
He called his father for advice. Charles “Mick” Dwyer, also was intrigued.
Mick helped his son kick the proverbial tires. They inspected the quaint little eatery, which had shown some wear and tear, but had an unmistakable feeling of home.
There was plenty of potential, they agreed, but there were risks.
“If you ever got in there, boy, you’d be taking a hell of a chance,” Mick said.
In fact, that’s where the name Chancy’s came from. Taking a chance.
“We also considered ‘Risky’s,’” Dwyer laughed. “Chancy’s fit better.”
So Dwyer gave up “a pretty darned good job” to try his hand at running his own business, with a new house, two sons, ages 4 years and 4 months, and a couple of new cars in his driveway.
He opened Sept. 3, 1992.
After a frenetic few weeks, complete with his first exposure to Moran Day, the newness began to wear off. And then winter came and business slowed to a trickle.
Dwyer calculates he lost $17,000 within the first few months
“Luckily, my wife Stacy had a good job,” he said. “Thank God for that. But I knew I couldn’t do this much longer.”
SLOWLY, Dwyer reversed the trend.
He honed his menu, borrowing recipes from his mother, Evelyn.
And he made a point to greet pretty much every customer who entered his door.
“I wanted to know everybody by name,” he said.
Dwyer was well aware that he was a young outsider introducing himself into a tight-knit community.
Dwyer sensed he’d made it when one of the old-timers pulled him aside to thank him for his hospitality. “I think that’s what will help you pull through,” the customer said.
Dwyer found his niche, but it came at a cost.
Staying open six days a week, from sunup to 10 or 11 p.m. daily meant 80-hour work weeks were the norm — if he was lucky.
“If you close at 10 you’re still not home before midnight,” he said.
Dwyer’s father convinced him to close a couple hours earlier, for fear his son would either keel over while slaving over the grill, or perhaps more likely, doze off while headed home after a 14-hour day.
Dwyer bumped up closing a couple hours to 9 p.m., Eventually, he cut his Saturdays to half-days, closing in the afternoon
It helped, but to a point.
“Even closing at 3, I was still there until 5,” he said. “Then, by the time I’d get home and shower, it was 7:30 or 8, and it’s too late to really do anything.”
“My kids really didn’t grow up around me,” Dwyer said. “Stacy raised them like a single parent.”
The marriage eventually failed.
“Something like this really isn’t cut out for relationships,” Dwyer admitted. “You just don’t have any time.”
He considered at various points relinquishing control, hiring a restaurant manager, but could never pull the trigger.
“You just don’t know how people will take it,” he admitted.
Earlier this year, Dwyer announced he would no longer open on Saturdays.
“I can do things on Saturdays now. Mow my yard, clean out the garage, and still have time to relax,” he said. “I’ve seen my grandkids more in the past two months than I had in the past year.”
Funny thing, despite shortening the hours, Chancy’s remains busy as ever.
“I wasn’t expecting it, but I would make more on Saturdays when I closed at 3 than when I would close at night,” Dwyer said. “And now, I’m making more five days a week (Monday through Friday) than I was when I was open Saturdays.”
THERE WERE other challenges.
The COVID-19 pandemic devastated countless small businesses, particularly restaurants forbidden for several months by lawmakers from hosting customers.
Chancy’s survived — even thrived — by taking advantage of a feature that has been a part of the restaurant since it was first built by Cleo Carpenter in 1970.
See, Carpenter built the Dairy Spot as a drive-in. Customers could pull up into the parking lot and order from a front window instead of coming inside.
And in the 50 years afterward, even after the Bigelows built a pair of additions to accentuate the dining room, the service window remained
That often overlooked window became Dwyer’s lifeline.
“We had to shut down once, for 10 days, after our two main employees got sick, and we had five people out with it at once,” Dwyer said. “But other than that, we were busier than ever.”
He’d have one employee on hand to handle phone calls, another to work the register, two to dispense food to the customers in the window and two or three in the kitchen.
Business was so busy Dwyer kept a full staff through the pandemic.
“It’s crazy to think about something like that afterward,” he said.
CHANCY’S has another advantage that didn’t materialize until Dwyer had been in business for a few years.
A nearby Phillips 66 gas station closed, opening the door for a new convenience store to open just east of Chancy’s in 2001. But when that convenience store folded, it remained vacant until the city began renting it as a fitness center a few years back.
Why is that important?
Because the gas station/convenience store/fitness center property also contains a spacious parking lot, with multiple entrances, capable of holding several 18-wheelers simultaneously.
“It’s easy to get in and get out, no matter which direction you’re going,” Dwyer said. “It’s amazing how many trucks we get each day.”
EVEN WITH his 30-year anniversary at hand, Dwyer sees no end in sight. “I’m not ready to grab a walker or a cane just yet,” he joked.
Having a full weekend to himself allows Dwyer to attack each Monday once again with vigor, even enthusiasm, even though 80-hour work weeks are still the norm.
“The crazy part to me is thinking of all the teenagers that would come in after school or work for me,” Dwyer said. “Now, they’re grown with families of their own.”
He keeps a pool table and other video games in his dining area, which remain popular draws for youngsters after school.
What they find is a dining area that’s remained largely unaltered in Dwyer’s 30 years, aside from regular upkeep on his equipment
“As far as really decorating it up, I wanted to a trillion times, but just never have,” he said. “It seems like if it’s not broke, why try to fix it. I’ve seen other places, hole-in-the-wall types, where they’ll pour thousands of dollars into something, get it looking all fancy, and they’re out of business in six months.”
So he’s content to keep the rustic feel, complete with photos of Moran nostalgia.
A prominent display honoring Moran native Debra Barnes, Miss America 1968, still adorns the wall.
His menu has stayed largely the same as well. Home-cooked meals, including his signature chicken strip dinners, or piping hot hamburgers and Suzy Q’s remain as popular as ever.
“Those Suzy Q’s are crazy,” he laughed. “We still go through six to eight buckets of potatoes a day. To this day, we’ll get a couple of old ladies who come in, they’ll each get a hamburger and a drink and they’ll share an order of Suzy Q’s.”
The key to Dwyer’s livelihood remains the community’s support.
“They’ve been tremendous.”
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