FLASHBACK: from SEPTEMBER 3, 1980 – “Uncle Jake” says he still enjoys daily grind

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/09/2020 (1751 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steinbach’s most popular short order cook has been serving up breakfast, burgers and fries for 25 years but he still enjoys being busy at the grill as much as he did in 1955 when he decided that being the chief cook and bottle washer at Banman’s Coffee Bar sure beat working on construction.

Steinbachers for years have been getting up early for the opportunity to sit down to a Jake Blatz breakfast, to swap stories with the regulars, and to pick up the latest news on the way to work. And all his early morning customers agree that nobody cooks a better egg than Jake.

“Breakfast is my bag,” says Blatz, referring to his mornings at the grill at Uncle Jake’s in the new Clearspring Village Shopping Centre or downtown at the Mall Restaurant, in what was Steinbach’s first shopping mall.

And he is not hesitant to share his secret to preparing the perfect egg, confident that his customers won’t pass on the info to their wives and start having breakfast at home.

“I put a little butter on a cooler grill and put a lid on the egg. That creates enough steam to baste it and it’s done before the toast. You never put an egg on the grill that you don’t try to make better and quicker.”

And in the case of most regulars, both the toast and the egg are at their table the minute they sit down. A few who have been Jake’s customers for decades recall that he was always the fastest short order cook around. Twenty people could walk into Banman’s and he’d have breakfast on the table in 10 minutes…no toast burned and everything done to perfection.

Jake’s rise to a management role came in 1958, when A.D. Penner hired him away from Banman’s to run the Waffle Shop in his new car dealership across the street. Then one day, Jake Banman came in and offered him “a buck an hour” to run Banman’s Coffee Bar instead, and back he went.

Later that year, Jake made the move from manager to owner in partnership with his brother John, when they bought The Coffee Shop, a restaurant located next to Loewen’s Body Shop on Main Street.

Jake says they worked up a fair business, but the place was so dilapidated, they were under constant pressure from the health inspector to fix it up.

“When it rained outside, it rained inside as well.”

Eventually the brothers remodelled the Coffee Shop and renamed it Blatz Restaurant. John left the business and Jake and his wife ran the restaurant, but they soon put it on the market because they were having trouble meeting the payments for the money borrowed for remodelling.

“In those days it was work from 7 a.m. until midnight, except Saturdays, when instead of going to a dance, we’d stay open until 4 a.m. to get the dance crowd.”

When the couple sold the restaurant, Jake said he’d never own another restaurant. Within a month he had already rented one in Winkler.

Jake has never been able to keep his fingers out of the restaurant business. Over the years, close to 30 single ownerships and restaurant partnerships have included A&Ws in Steinbach, Winkler and Cardston, Alberta; Millers Restaurant in Steinbach and a licensed Miller’s Restaurant in Stonewall, and other ventures in Winkler, Morden, Altona, Carman, Winnipeg and Kenora.

The opportunity to be part of the exciting new mall development at the north end of Steinbach prompted Blatz to add another restaurant to his already long resume when approached by Ernie and Jim Penner

“Being a restaurant manager is the easiest job in the world, if you have one restaurant and you’re not lazy. Basically, I’m lazy and that why I surround myself with the best possible people. You need one basic cook, several short order cooks and a bunch of friendly waitresses.”

Keeping the menu simple is important, as well. Jake says his menus are so simple that it doesn’t matter which of the short order cooks quits, he can cook the meals himself.

Because, despite his claim of laziness, Blatz admits he can’t stand having nothing to do.

“When I sold Millers to Robert Dyck in 1978, I said that’s it, but I would have gone nuts if Robert hadn’t let me work there.”