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Rosy’s Diner keeps tradition going

Business profile

By R. R. Branstrom 7 min read

ESCANABA -- A beloved eatery on Ludington Street has operated in a few variations for the last 95 years.

What is now Rosy's Diner and a favorite breakfast spot for many got its start as Uneeda Lunch in the 1930s. The building was new then; Sanborn maps from 1929 show no structure on the site.

The first record of Uneeda Lunch appears in a September 1931 advertisement printed in the Daily Press. It promoted "sandwiches, short orders, plate lunch, open day and night, (and) snappy service."

In 1937, it was referred to as Uneeda Lunch Room.

In 1939, Thomas "Tommy" Xavier Quinn -- a 1933 graduate of Escanaba High School -- reportedly purchased Uneeda Lunch for $1,200 along with his brother, Marvin.

The place was renamed Tommy's Lunch, and "he and friends gathered there daily for the next 55-plus years," his obituary read. Marvin's involvement was minimal and soon dissolved.

Just weeks prior to buying the place, a rowdy Quinn and friends had been thrown out for singing, Quinn told Chip Olsen of the Daily Press in 1989.

When Quinn shipped off to military service in the Navy during World War II, Timothy Curran and Marcella Curran ran the place, temporarily calling it "Tim and Sally's."

Quinn returned and reclaimed Tommy's in 1946, at which point the Currans reopened Tim and Sally's in a prefabricated Quonset hut at 1306 Ludington St.

Also in '46, Quinn hired a 15-year-old Edna Frossard. Business was good.

Quinn, referred to as a "tireless promoter for Escanaba," served on city council, was a founding member of the local barbershop chorus, and played a key role in the erection of a new Chamber of Commerce building in the 1960s.

Around 1950, additions were built onto the little diner -- the back kitchen area and the entryway in the front.

Community-supporting Quinn painted the restaurant with an unusual color scheme -- green and white for Holy Name plus orange and black for Escanaba.

As for Frossard, she turned out to be such an extremely valuable and loyal employee that when she was still working at Tommy's multiple decades later, he willed the restaurant to her.

Quinn passed away in 1995. Frossard, who was then approaching retirement, ran the place for another year before she accepted an offer on the restaurant.

Jodi Chouinard took over in 1996. She ran the restaurant for a few years before Rosemary Cox purchased the restaurant and renamed it Rosy’s Diner in 1999.

The name was perhaps the biggest change the little eatery underwent. The restaurant still features the counter and barstools that Tommy’s did. As a special, Rosy’s sold corned beef hash, a classic Irish dish, now a favorite regular item.

During a 2019 interview, Cox shared that she “never cooked a day in her life” before purchasing the diner at the suggestion of the owner of Breezy Point. But she made sure to keep using scratch recipes and commit to quality to keep customers coming back, she said, according to the article that ran just prior to the 20th anniversary of Cox’s ownership.

Throughout the 2000s, Rosy’s Diner -- including the food, service, staff and Cox’s personality -- gained a reputation near and far. Tourists heard about the place by word of mouth and spread the praise of the Ludington Street staple. In 2018, Cox was surprised when customers showed her a copy of Travel and Leisure magazine, wherein Rosy’s Diner of Escanaba was ranked number two on a list of the 25 best diners in the United States.

Elements that may be recognizable to people who pass down the street, even if they’ve never stopped in, might be the red neon EAT sign or the mural painting of Popeye character J. Wellington Wimpy painted on the west exterior wall.

In 2015, Cox commissioned George Hansen -- the same man who painted the iconic Escanaba Eskymo on the water tower in the city -- to paint the wall red with an image of burger-eating Wimpy, whose famous line in the cartoon was, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!”

While Cox was slinging burgers, the future owners of the diner were building plenty of restaurant experience elsewhere in town.

“I worked 18 years at the Family Inn, and then I moved over to the Stonehouse for eight years before we bought this,” said Myra Fields, co-owner along with Andy Fields.

Andy worked in one restaurant building on Lincoln Road for 22 years, he said -- at Country Kitchen and then, after the place changed hands, Hudson’s Classic Grill and Bar. He was the general manager at Hudson’s before embarking on a new business mission.

The Fieldses were on vacation, reportedly lounging by a pool in Mexico and sipping margaritas when they heard that the diner back home was for sale.

“I just kind of was like, ‘hey, Rosy’s is for sale. We should buy it.’ …Made a joke,” said Andy.

When they got back to Escanaba, they called the realtor, looked at the place, and made the decision to buy.

It was June of 2022 when the deal went through. Just prior to the change of ownership and post-COVID, Rosy’s had been operating from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Myra and Andy changed it to 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., with no business on Wednesdays.

The current hours work well for them, the Fieldses said.

“We have kids in school, so we like to go home in the evenings,” Myra said. “It works out nice. I mean, we have one shift, everybody in, everybody out.”

A few small changes took place when the Fieldses bought the diner from Cox, but not that affected business much. The place was only closed for about four days for cleaning and reorganizing before it reopened.

Myra kept working at the Stonehouse for a little while until business at Rosy’s demanded more attention.

By now, Myra and Andy have installed a new freezer, added an ice machine and reupholstered the seats at the bar.

“We try to update something every summer, and we tried to look at the construction (on Ludington Street) as our update this year,” said Andy, half-joking.

Today, Rosy’s Diner is frequently bustling, though it can be unpredictable. Sometimes, all the seats are taken. Other times, there’ll only be a handful of people in the place, and visitors get to take their pick of the orange-topped barstools or one of the tables. Many customers know that they’ll often have to wait before their ticket reaches the grill, but consider the experience worth it.

The current owners said that they’re thrilled and honored to maintain a core piece of Escanaba history, and both Myra and Andy enjoy the variety of interactions that running a diner provides. They employ six full-time staff and a couple part-time employees.

Menu items at Rosy’s Diner -- which serves 90% breakfast, the Fieldses estimated -- that are especially popular include the biscuits and gravy, corned beef hash, omelettes and skillets. One that always seems to impress is the giant pancake, which is more than enough to feed a couple people.

Besides the food, another thing that is a little claim to fame for Rosy’s is that it featured briefly in the 2001 flick “Escanaba in da Moonlight” as the namesake owner is seen through the window with a pot of coffee. Myra said that film buffs stop in occasionally, and she keeps memorabilia behind the bar to show them.

Regulars know, but newcomers should bear in mind that Rosy’s Diner is cash only. An ATM is just inside the door for those who forget.

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