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Trojan Inn takes a bow

Mary Ann Gardner has been a part of the Trojan Inn cafe in downtown Toledo for nearly 60 years. Last week Gardner announced her retirement and said she plans to close the Trojan Inn in hopes of selling the property. The restaurant was first opened in 1962 by Gardner’s sister Marlene and has stayed in the family since that time. Gardner purchased the business in 1984 and helped it become not only a prefered breakfast and lunch destination but also one of Tama County’s longest running family businesses. Darvin Graham/News Chronicle

After nearly 60 years in the restaurant business, Mary Ann Gardner and her Trojan Inn diner in Toledo are making their exit.

Gardner, who has owned the business since 1984, announced her retirement on Jan. 22 with plans to also close the restaurant that has served homestyle breakfast and lunch to patrons since 1962. The last day for the Trojan Inn is set for Jan. 29.

Gardner’s sister Marlene Rhoads opened the business a half block west of the current diner in 1962, employing a number of her family members including Mary Ann, her sister Ruth Becker and their mother Carrie Becker.

Marlene sold the business to Carrie around 1966 when she and her husband moved to Kansas. Carrie ran the business until 1984 when she retired and gave it over to Mary Ann.

At the time, Mary Ann was still raising her two sons and told herself she’d give the business five years and be ready to move on once her sons were through high school.

Former Trojan Inn Cafe owner Carrie Becker takes a moment to pause in the kitchen during one of many busy days at the downtown Toledo hub. Becker’s daughter and current Trojan Inn owner Mary Ann Gardner noted that Becker could often be found with this same pensive look as she ran the diner. Photo contributed

Something stuck however and the Trojan Inn has stayed with Mary Ann and with the Tama-Toledo community for more than 30 years since.

“I love it,” Gardner said. “I love the job, I love the customers and I love cooking.”

Gardner moved Trojan Inn out of the old building in 1994 and with the help of Larry Applegate and Jerry Hargrove, completed a full renovation of their current building to make room for a professional kitchen and dining room.

Since then the restaurant and menu have remained constant with locals favorites including jumbo tenderloins, homemade pies, cream puffs and the hot beef special on Thursdays.

One of the most gratifying experiences Gardner has felt is witnessing generations of customers and former employees returning to the Trojan Inn years later with their children and being able to continue the legacy of offering home cooked comfort food in a friendly atmosphere.

An outside view of the Trojan Inn’s original location on High Street in Toledo. The diner moved down the street in 1994 where it has remained open until this week. Photo contributed

Finishing out the run with Gardner are her two current employees, Deb Tonche and Beth Smith. Tonche has been a mainstay at the Trojan Inn, serving and cooking food alongside Gardner for the past 35 years.

Gardner said she’s felt steadfast in her decision to move on and has had no second thoughts despite feeling sad the ride is coming to an end.

Although Gardner’s decision to retire and close the restaurant was not directly tied to either the pandemic or the derecho, she also said the year has been challenging, stressful and unlike any other.

When COVID-19 hit the Trojan Inn closed their doors for two months. Once she reopened in June, business slowly returned with her carryout business more than doubling.

Since that time Gardner said her customers have been more than willing to follow social distance and mask guidelines but that the combined sum of all the health and safety measures needing to be taken during this time is at a level she’s never experienced before.

Pictured is one of many coffee groups that made Trojan Inn their home over the years. In the past year Tama-Toledo has seen the closing of three landmark restaurants including Big T Maid-Rite, King Tower and now the Trojan Inn. Photo contributed

The derecho that hit Toledo in August thankfully spared the Trojan Inn from any catastrophic damage. Gardner said the worst they experienced from the storm was the loss of power and some food that was in cold storage.

She says the decision to retire came on this past October and was something that caught her by surprise. Like a switch had been flipped.

In November Trojan Inn pulled back their closing hours from 4 p.m. to 2 p.m. due to staffing challenges. Gardner cited difficulty in recruiting new employees as one of the driving factors behind her decision.

Once the holiday season had passed Gardner took some time to inform her family and those close around her of her intentions and on Jan. 22 announced publicly through the restaurant’s Facebook page that Friday would be their last day.

Over the past week messages have poured in congratulating Gardner on her retirement and reminiscing about the memories made in years gone by.

Several commenters noted memories of their childhood when they would stop by Trojan Inn on the way home from South Tama’s middle school a few blocks east of downtown.

While the Trojan Inn has been a destination for some to return to on visits back to their hometown, the restaurant has been equally important as a gathering place for those within the Tama-Toledo community.

Gardner recounts numerous clubs, businesses, reunions and retirement parties using the meeting room in the back over the years. She even remembers jury groups from the county courthouse up the block coming in during their lunch breaks to have a private place to eat and continue deliberating.

Though in-person business is not what it was even a year ago, Gardner says she still has a solid group of regulars that will now have to find new places to land during breakfast and lunch.

“I’ve heard a lot of people, especially our elderly customers say ‘Coming to the Trojan Inn gets me out of the house. It gives me a place to laugh and have some fun with other people. And it usually makes my day’,” Gardner said.

Though the Trojan Inn still maintains a number of recipes and event tools from their earliest years, Gardner admits she’s seen a great deal of change in the restaurant business as well as in the downtown Toledo landscape.

In the 60s and 70s Gardner remembers downtown Toledo as a very full place. There was so much local industry that businesses would be end up locating on the second floor or in the basement of the storefront properties.

Four decades, one farm crisis and one great recession later, the downtown is a shell of its former self. Anchors like the county buildings, the bank, the hardware store and the post office remain but traffic has declined and the number of vacant or recently demolished buildings has risen to at least an equal figure as those still standing and open for business.

Gardner hopes to see future development come to downtown Toledo but feels that the priority should be to simply increase the volume of people spending time in the area, by whatever means are available.

Gardner has plans to sell the business and the building outright but said she has no immediate prospects in the works. Her words of wisdom for anybody that may pick up and carry the Trojan Inn torch in the future are to find the joy in good hard work and to be there for customers with consistent and reliable hours.

In retirement, Gardner is first looking forward to the respite that will come after stepping off a moving train that has gotten her up before the sun and into work each day for the past several decades.

In the short term, she hopes to pay a visit to her son Richard and her grandchildren and great grandchildren in Kansas. Once the pandemic has subsided she plans to do some more traveling.

In 2012 Gardner organized and held a 50 year anniversary open house for the Trojan Inn in order to honor and celebrate the years of community built within the walls of the downtown diner.

This time around Gardner says she’s not planning any sort of send off or celebration.

“The last day is going to feel very weird,” she said. “There will be tears I’m sure. The people we see everyday, they’re like friends or family. It’ll be sad, like a death. And it probably won’t hit me until Monday.”

While the chapter of the Trojan Inn in Toledo will soon be closing, the Gardner family still maintains a presence in the downtown district. Mary Ann’s son Roger has co-owned the Flaming Office Bar and Grill on the corner of Main and High Street in Toledo since 2016.