Some might think the owner of restaurant specializing in six-egg omelets would be playing up the low-carb craze.
Not Walter Prunczik Jr.
"We're not looking for skinny people. They can go eat air. We're looking for eaters who want real food in their stomachs," he said.
Prunczik is bringing back the landmark Del-Kid restaurant on Steubenville Pike in Robinson as "The New Kid." The grand opening is today.
"We just want to have a party," he said. "We want everyone who loved this place to come."
And coming they are. Prunczik quietly opened Saturday but had to close early because he ran out of food.
"I missed the bacon cheeseburgers," Andy Pachesky of Robinson said while waiting to get his lunch to go earlier this week.
Ruth Bray of Ross, a Del-Kid waitress for 19 years until it closed nearly a year ago, is one of two employees coming back.
"I hated to see it close," she said. "I thought it would be great to see everybody again. I want to be there. I've been bored. I miss the people."
Prunczik, 49 and a Robinson native, is promising to bring the nearly 40-year-old "greasy spoon" back to its former glory. His concept, is simple: "Feed 'em."
"We feel if you leave here hungry, it's going to be your fault," he said.
Prunczik said he'll serve the area's biggest breakfasts, largest sandwiches and strongest coffee. He's not worried about the chain restaurants that have sprouted up around The Mall at Robinson.
"I feel I have no competition. Everybody else is worried about profit and portions, and I'm not," he said. "You're getting four eggs here, at least, whether you want them or not."
Postal service employees Bob Moody of Zelienople and Steve McAteer of Imperial, Del-Kid patrons since the '70s and '60s, respectively, feasted on the Kid's trademark six-egg omelets for lunch Monday.
"It was just as good as the old one," Moody said. "I was glad to see they offer the same sorts of fare. I didn't know what to expect."
Prunczik's business dealings have taken him to North Carolina, Alabama and Texas. He remembers eating at the Del-Kid when he was 12.
"I've been traveling the road for 25 years and I'm done. I want to settle down," he said. "I love to cook. I love to feed people. I didn't want to see this place disappear. I wanted to preserve it as part of history, so why not?"
Prunczik gutted and renovated the grease-soaked restaurant, which seats about 60 and employs 12. He and his wife, Angela, covered the walls with trinkets they've picked up across the country, and now there's carpet on the floor.
"A lot of people wouldn't come here because they thought of it as a trucker's greasy spoon," McAteer said. "This will turn it around, once word gets out. I'll tell people."
