The “Horseshoe Club” — named for the shape of the bar at which they regularly sit — at Windell’s Café in Dale includes Jerry Sanders of Santa Claus, clockwise from top left, Ray Striegel of Dale, Ray Harpenau of St. Henry and Jack Troth, Bob Reinke and Gerald Spurlock, all of Dale. At about 5:30 a.m. Thursday, the men enjoyed some of the final cups of coffee being served at Windell’s. The café opened in 1947 and Betty and Darrel Jenkins, owners for the past 20 years, are closing it Sunday. Jake May/The Herald
DALE — The members of the Windell’s Café “Horseshoe Club” may have to leave their favorite eatery Sunday, but the bonds the men have made will continue.
The 64-year-old Dale restaurant will close its doors for the last time after business Sunday.
The group of men who make Windell’s their daily meeting place for breakfast derived their name from the horseshoe-shaped bar at which each of them has a usual seat.
Jack Troth, a Dale native, has been eating breakfast at the cafe for the past 41 years. The official opening time is 6 a.m., but Troth knows the doors actually are unlocked an hour earlier.
Troth said he can remember a time when “if you got here five minutes after 6 a.m., you didn’t get a seat” at the horseshoe bar.
The popular mom-and-pop restaurant on Medcalf Street opened its doors in 1947 when Bob and Margaret Windell of Corydon purchased the building, which had previously been a gas station.
The Windells owned the business, which served daily breakfast, lunch and homemade desserts, until Bob died in 1978.
Gerald and Barbara Kissel reopened the cafe in 1980 and ran it for five years with the help of Dennis and Loretta Prechtel. The restaurant changed hands again in 1985, when it was purchased by Vic and Ruth Klem of Jasper.
Darrel and Betty Jenkins have owned and operated the place since September 1991, when Betty, a longtime restaurant worker, bought the building from the Klems and continued its tradition of bringing home-cooked food to the townspeople.
The restaurant has been the weekly meeting place of the Dale Kiwanis Club since the 1940s. A group of retired teachers also visits the restaurant every Wednesday.
Darrel speculated that the dedicated groups will move their meetings to his and Betty’s other restaurant, Jenk’s Pizza, which is just down the road on State Road 62. The couple plan to keep the pizza place open for the rest of their lives, Darrel, 69, said. Betty is 64.
He added that he hopes to move Windell’s fried chicken recipe to Jenk’s and the popular coffee the cafe has served for 20 years will be moved to the pizza restaurant as well. Darrel is meeting with employees to consider opening the pizza place at 7 a.m. so the Horseshoe Club can remain together for home-cooked breakfast.
“It wasn’t the easiest thing to do to shut it down. We’ve been three years thinking about shutting it down,” Darrel said. They made the decision to give themselves a chance to slow down.
“The hard thing about it is it’s a small community. I’m from Dale, lived here my whole life,” he continued. “It’s hard because it’s going to hurt downtown Dale. When the doors are locked up, it looks like a ghost town driving through Dale.”
Windell’s is the only locally owned restaurant in town that serves breakfast.
“We’re going to miss it,” said Ray Harpenau of St. Henry. “I can remember coming in and sitting at that bar over there, eating banana splits in high school.”
The Jenkinses remodeled the building in 2004, adding a section to the back of the restaurant with 125 new seats and fixing up the kitchen and bathrooms. For a time, they even considered taking out the horseshoe bar at the front of the restaurant, but the idea was not welcomed by many.
“They changed their minds. Somehow it stayed,” Harpenau said.
The restaurant has always taken care of its dedicated customers, with 17-year waitress Patty Gogel even memorizing some of the patrons’ favorite orders.
“By the time I get sat down, my oatmeal is usually sitting here,” Troth said. Each morning, he orders a bowl of oatmeal, a single piece of toast and apple jelly.
Sam Cooper of Dale, a 35-year customer, always orders sausage, a biscuit and eggs, which he makes red with hot sauce.
Even the patrons who have passed away are remembered at Windell’s. Troth and Harpenau remembered that every time a dedicated Horseshoe Club member died, a coffee cup was placed at that person’s usual bar seat for an entire day as a memorial to the lost friend.
The restaurant, which was featured on the Food Network for its chicken and dumplings and given an article in Midwest Living Magazine, will remain intact, waiting for a new buyer.
“There’s rumors we’re liquidating it, or we’re going to have an auction. We ain’t doing none of that. It’s going to sit like it is for a period of time. Hopefully someone will come in and buy it for the community’s sake,” Darrel said. “It would be a good catering business for somebody to take over.”
Harpenau said he hopes a buyer will continue to run the business as a café and that the horseshoe bar will remain intact for many years to come.
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