New owners keep the flavor and feel of popular Whidbey diner

By Patricia Guthrie / South Whidbey Record

FREELAND — Change don’t come easy ‘round here.

Especially when it comes to breakfast.

The Freeland Cafe, the venerable family diner on E. Main Street, has new owners — but it’s the same menu, same interior decor and same buzzing, busy vibe that it’s always been. Yes, you can still order the “Loco Moco,” eggs Benedict and biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

Deb and Jeff Kennelly purchased the popular cafe and lounge from the three daughters of Bob and Virina Bryant, who started the Freeland Cafe in 1974.

The cafe re-opened this month with the Kennellys at the grill and the till. The restaurant had been closed since April with the sale.

“This isn’t a business that’s broken, so it doesn’t need to be fixed,” said Petite Bryant-Hunt, one of the daughters collectively known as “the three sisters” in Freeland. “This is a 45-year success story, but it’s taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”

After their parents passed, the three Bryant daughters — Petite Bryant-Hunt, Dawn Swamp and Lani Bryant-Anderson — shouldered the family legacy.

“People have been coming here literally for generations,” Bryant-Hunt said. “We served the kids of our parents’ friends, then their grandkids, so it’s a very emotional time for us.”

Deb and Jeff Kennelly have no previous experience in the restaurant industry, so buying one already running smoothly works in their favor. They stopped at the cafe during visits to Coupeville to see Deb’s mother long before they had the notion to buy it.

“It was the perfect business for us,” Jeff Kennelly said. “We’ve been training with the sisters. Lani showed how to make many of the dishes, and the staff has been great helping us out.”

Deb Kennelly admits she asked if it would be OK to paint the front door blue and add a flower pot and wooden bench out front.

But then they went even further.

“We added diet Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew,” Jeff Kennelly said.

More desserts may be added to the menu, as well as more daily specials.

“Jeff’s a great baker,” Deb Kennelly said, “so maybe in the next 30 days, we’ll add homemade cinnamon rolls and pies.”

Bob Bryant retired early from Boeing to fulfill his wife’s dream of owning a restaurant. First, they ran the Weathervane restaurant by the Clinton ferry dock, and then bought the Freeland diner.

Back then, it was called Kimball’s Cafe. The Bryants not only changed the name but also added food from Hawaii, where Virina grew up.

“Back then on Whidbey, there was not much in the way of Oriental food or Chinese restaurants,” Bryant-Hunt said.

Based on her favorite food from those other islands, Virina soon turned many Whidbey Islanders onto steaming bowls of teriyaki and saimin, which is made with Chinese egg noodles in a shrimp broth topped with barbecued pork, hard boiled egg and green onion.

“Breakfast Hawaiian style” is the first item on the hefty eight-page menu. It’s made with two eggs, steamed rice and either Portuguese sausage or Spam.

Then, there’s the ever-popular Loco Moco breakfast plate, a hamburger patty with two eggs on top of steamed rice covered in gravy.

“I’m here every day for breakfast,” said Dave Moulton, one of the cafe’s many regulars. “They never know what I’m going to order except on Sunday: One-half of eggs Benedict with diced green onions and hash browns smothered in gravy.”

In the old days, the whole Bryant family pitched in, cooked, served, washed dishes, whatever was needed to help out Mom and Dad.

But as they got older, the daughters pursued other careers and raised their own families. When both their parents were diagnosed with cancer, the sisters took turns caretaking and keeping the restaurant humming along.

When their parents died, first their father in 2003, followed by their mother in 2005, the sisters made the decision to keep the restaurant.

“As much as we didn’t want the headache of owning a restaurant, it’s part of our blood,” said Bryant-Hunt.

“After 30 years behind the grill, I said one day, ‘I just can’t make another cheeseburger,’” she added.

Should any of the three sisters get nostalgic, all they have to do is walk through the new blue door.

If you go

Freeland Cafe and Lounge, 1642 E. Main St., Freeland, is open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Call 360-331-9945 or go to freelandcafe.net for more information.