After sharing in January that his Kaysville mom-and-pop diner was “turning a corner,” Jason Sanders announced sad news last week: Annie’s Diner is closing for good.
It doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise. Salt Lake Tribune staff writer Andy Larsen wrote in a January column about what it takes to operate a restaurant that Annie’s Diner lost more than $93,000 in 2023. When asked this week why the diner is shuttering, Sanders simply said, “The labor costs are too high. Food costs are high.”
About two weeks ago, he got an offer on the land where the diner stands, at 286 N. 400 West. The prospect of actually making some money on the sale “was too good to pass up,” he said.
Sanders’ intellectual property law practice is also “booming,” he added. “Just having the diner take time and energy and brain power away means I don’t give my clients the attention they deserve sometimes — or at least I worry about that.”
The fate of the long-running restaurant remains unclear. Sanders knows Annie’s Diner will be torn down, though he said he “wouldn’t want to speculate” about what will go up in its place.
The last day to grab a meal there is Saturday.
‘We’ve tried really hard’
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Emma Sanders makes pastries at Annie's Diner in Kaysville, on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024. After almost 30 years in operation as a restaurant, the Annie’s Diner building will be torn down.
Sanders bought what was originally Granny Annie’s from Annie Sill Curry and her family in 2020 — renaming it Annie’s Diner — because he said his family loved it and wanted “to keep the community restaurant intact.” Granny Annie’s had been in operation for about 18 years, operating as Joanie’s Restaurant before that for about seven years.
“And we’ve tried really hard to keep it what it was without, you know, trying to raise prices too much or changing too much,” he said.
He kept the classic American comfort food recipes the same, for example, while adding a few new items, and he retained the diner’s family feel. His youngest daughter, 14-year-old Lily Sanders, has worked off and on in the restaurant as a host and busser for the past year. His 17-year-old twin daughters have been the “scone masters,” cooking up to 200 of the diner’s famous Utah scones for customers on a typical Saturday.
Lily Sanders said she’s going to miss the diner’s home fries the most.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brooklyn MacKenzie serves food at Annie's Diner in Kaysville, on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024.
Her dad said he’s going to miss the people, especially the regulars. He said he has one in particular, Gary, who would drive 20 minutes each way for a meal. “Every time I go there, I run into friends,” Sanders said.
Online, customers took to social media to express their sadness about Annie’s Diner closing. “We have loved your place!! Thank you for all you have done for the community,” one commenter said.
Even Kaysville Mayor Tami Tran chimed in, posting on Facebook: “We are sad to say farewell to Annie’s and grateful for the many contributions and ways in which you supported Kaysville and surrounding communities.”
“We wish you, your family, and your dedicated wonderful employees well as you look forward to new adventures and opportunities,” the post continued.
Advice for restaurant owners
Sanders said he has mixed emotions about the fate of the diner: He loves it, but “it’s been a lot of work and a lot of money.”
“It’s just stress, right?,” he said. “Like, I’m just constantly worried about whether we’re going to pull it off and thinking about ways to make it work better.”
He said he has cried since sharing the news of the diner’s closure, but he also feels relieved. “It’s just been kind of a burden to carry it,” he said.
Sanders offered two pieces of parting advice for restaurant owners.
First, “I think one of my mistakes is just trying to carry on Annie’s way of doing it too long,” he said. “And that’s not a knock on Annie, or a negative. But she worked there all day, every day. And kind of had her own model, and I tried to follow that model, while not being there all day, every day. And it just didn’t work.”
Second, he said, “You can’t dabble in the restaurant business, you’ve got to go all in. ... If you’re going to run a mom-and-pop shop, it’s kind of an all-or-nothing kind of thing.”
He also said he wishes he’d implemented dynamic pricing, where the price of a dish changes based on the cost of ingredients.
For its final day of business Saturday, Annie’s Diner is planning to host a big party starting at 7 a.m., complete with a live band, magicians and a balloon artist. Sanders said they’re going to offer a limited menu of their favorite dishes, so cooking times will be faster and plenty can stop in for one more breakfast.
“I’ve told my staff we’re going to keep going until we either run out of energy or run out of food,” Sanders said.
A parting recipe: Annie’s famous scones
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) A Utah scone at Annie's Diner in Kaysville, on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024.
While a lot of the recipes at Annie’s Diner are stored in people’s heads, Sanders said, he wanted to share the recipe for the diner’s renowned Utah scones.
They are best served with honey butter, he said. (Invite friends and/or family when you make this recipe; the yield is “a ton of scones.”)
Ingredients:
— 3/4 cup yeast
— 1/4 cup salt
— 2 heaping cups of sugar
— 2-2 1/4 cups oil
— 8 large eggs or 10 medium eggs
— 3 cups of milk
— 1 full pitcher hot water
— 40 cups of all-purpose flour
Directions:
— Mix everything but the flour.
— Let the yeast start to foam up (on cold days it takes longer).
— Then add the flour and mix/knead for five minutes or so. (Add more flour if necessary until the consistency feels right).
— Let the dough rise a bit.
— Create balls of dough then stretch the balls in large discs.
— Fry up in hot oil, and enjoy.
