Mary Mullins learned how to make homemade pie crust from her mother. It’s therefore appropriate that she now owns and operates a
DeWitt restaurant with a focus on community.
Mullins owned Mary’s Café on US 27 between Lansing and DeWitt when the opportunity to move to downtown DeWitt almost became available in 2009. Though she found out that the former DeWitt staple, Sam’s Kitchen, was going out of business just a few days after it was sold to another restaurateur, she told the owners how much she would have loved to locate there.
When the 2500-square foot restaurant space became available again in 2010, Mullins jumped at the chance.
“It’s a community restaurant,” says Mullins, “and [the original owners] wanted to keep it alive. They remembered that I was looking around, and I owned the restaurant in less than a week.”
Mullins’ goal was maintain the sense of community Sam’s Kitchen had built over many years. Between bringing back the original menu with Mullins’ homemade enhancements, to hiring 10 local employees – many of whom were staff from Sam’s Kitchen, she’s already reaching that goal with less than a year in business.
“We have a waitress celebrating 21 years of working here,” says Mullins. “We came in, we took over, and we took the menu and everything back to what the community remembers.”
Mary’s Homestyle Restaurant features such specialties as homemade soups, biscuits and gravy, cinnamon rolls and Mullins’ famous stuffed hashbrowns. It is currently open for breakfast, lunch, catering and special events.
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