Carson City restaurant milestone: Cracker Box diner celebrates 40 years Sunday
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 05/10/2020 - 11:08am
While not an ideal way to spend an anniversary, Sunday marked s a milestone among Carson City restaurants, with one having set a standard for both longevity and customer loyalty.
It was 40 years ago May 10, 1980 that the Cracker Box diner, located at 402 East William Street, opened its doors and has since served its famed breakfast and lunches from scratch to hungry patrons who will tell you how they savor the homestyle diner atmosphere as much as they do the food.
And while the COVID-19 shutdown has presented its own share of challenges, including a shut down of restaurant seating, which has since been replaced with a temporary curbside pick up option, owner Jerry Massad said its customers are the ones who have come to expect they'd stay open to keep on doing what they do best.
"Carson City has been great to us and that's why I couldn't see a purpose in keeping it closed," said Massad. "We put our heads together and we are making it work."
Massad credits his head cook Adam Romo, a 16-year-employee and floor manager Siovhan McEver, a 14-year employee, for not only the restaurants successes in the past decade, but for continuing the restaurant's mission of providing quality food and friendly service.
In the coming days, Massad says he will announce when the restaurant will be able to open its doors to diners again, as part of the governor's phase 1 plan to reopen Nevada. Right now the take out, pick up service is offered daily, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Known among locals as "The Box" Cracker Box, started out with 4 tables and sat 24 people, including 8 at the counter. Massad credits his mentor and uncle, Paul Abowd, known restauranteur and founder of Adele's for encouraging him to take a chance at the restaurant business. Before he opened the Cracker Box, Massad was a local bartender.
Coming from a family line of restaurateurs, Massad began cooking himself, learned the business and it has kept on perking now with 2 expansions in its past, creating 1,800 square feet which can now seat 70 people. It may be bigger now than it was the day it opened 40 years ago, but the quality remains the same.
The Cracker Box employees pride themselves on serving piping hot, hearty, and made from scratch breakfasts and lunches seven days a week. The Box makes its own sausage gravy, cures its own corned beef and hand dips the chicken fried steaks.
Plus all soups and salad dressings are made in house, from scratch. Not to mention its “Soon to be Famous” home-style spuds and squeezed to order juices.
The Cracker Box is as diner as they come. It really retains all the feel of a diner, and it is that experience which has left a lasting legacy among its local customer base. Just as it does with Js' Bistro in Dayton, also owned by Massad, the Cracker Box experience is how it prepares and serves its meals.
"We've built in our business based on a family of service and food quality and it's the community that has embraced that," he said.
Voted Best in the West by readers of AAA’s Via Magazine, the Cracker Box is always at the top of the “Best of” lists. Locals regularly vote it the “Best Breakfast in Carson City” and Trip Advisor users have honored the diner two years running with a Certificate of Excellence Award.
Since opening, The Cracker Box and its staff, have also been active in the community, regularly sponsoring, supporting and donating to numerous local charities and causes.
