Thomas selected for Chamber HOF

or nearly 40 years, Rosa Thomas did her best to make the northeastern Jackson County community of Whiting a great place to visit — and not just for breakfast and lunch.

That’s how long Thomas, a native of Denison, was involved in running the Whiting Cafe, in addition to being a key player in the Whiting Fire Festival, one of the county’s premier small-town festivals for a dozen years, among other things.

“I didn’t do it because I wanted people to pat me on the back,” Thomas said. “I did it because I wanted to. I really did want to help our town.”

This February, the Holton/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce will be giving Thomas a well-deserved pat on the back by welcoming her into the Chamber Hall of Fame, an honor she says belongs as much to the countless others who helped her at the cafe and with the Fire Festival as it does to her.

“Everything takes more than one person,” she said. “Through the years, all of our help’s been family, almost all of it, on both sides of the house. We’ve had a lot of family, becasue the people that come to the cafe become your family. A lot of them come every day, or almost every day. They’re your family, and you love them.”

In her younger years, Thomas didn’t necessarily see herself running a restaurant for 40 years, but she and her family ran a restaurant in Denison for about three years, giving her some experience.

“I’d just gotten out of school,” she said. “We opened up on Oct. 14, 1980 — the only reason I know that day is because we opened on my birthday!”

Then, on Aug. 1, 1984, Thomas and her mother, Gwyn Hinman, purchased the Whiting Cafe and moved to Whiting, running the cafe until Thomas and her husband, William, became joint owners in 1991. And while the cafe only had enough room to serve 25 customers at one time, she said, it was just the right size and had the right atmosphere.

“Everybody was family. Everybody could visit,” Thomas said. “I never wanted anybody to feel like they weren’t welcome there, because of the way they looked, or if they were too dirty or whatever. If they’ve been working, that’s all right.”

Whiting Cafe was mainly a breakfast-and-lunch eatery for much of its existence, surviving the opening of two casinos in the area but still staying open one night a week for regular customers and becoming known for Thomas’ specialty dish, a fried chicken plate served on Thursdays. People would also come back for the cafe’s homemade pies, she said.

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