Days after owner’s death, fire closes Maniac Mike’s Cafe
It was an eerie confluence of events, one that family members and friends can't help but ponder with amazement.
"They were saying he took it with him," family friend
The well-liked Stewart died
Firefighters cut holes in the roof and got the fire out. A freezer condenser had overheated. Annette thanks Cable employees for their alertness and firefighters for their quick work.
The building still stands, but smoke and water damage is extensive and the cafe isn't expected to reopen until later this year.
"I lost my husband and my restaurant in the same week, within four days," Annette told me Monday morning on the restaurant's patio, accessible only past yellow caution tape.
Just as the family is processing
It's hard for the family to resist finding humor or a larger meaning in the fire.
"His heart and his soul was in this place," Annette told me, saying her husband spent 17 years running the cafe, seven days a week, with only four holidays a year off. "Sometimes strange coincidences happen, right?"
Mike's mother, Millie, was one of airport founder
The tug of his roots led him back to Cable and he took over the cafe in 1999. After a renovation, which almost wiped the family out financially, it opened as Maniac Mike's in 2000. Stewart told me in 2010 that by the opening they had
But the restaurant became a success, serving airport employees, pilots who would fly in and people in the community who liked the food, the view of the airfield and the good-humored, energetic Stewart.
I wrote about him in 2010 at Maniac Mike's 10th anniversary. "This is a kid magnet," Stewart said then. "Everybody loves airplanes."
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Last summer he was diagnosed with progressive bulbar palsy, a form of ALS, gradually losing strength in his mouth and tongue. He stopped going into the restaurant in December and died at home in
Kristina had worked side by side with her father and was in the
Once they get the go-ahead from the insurance company, the Stewarts will submit plans to the city for a remodeled cafe.
"Maybe this was Mike's way of saying, 'I had my dream. It's time for you to have your dreams,'"
Why the name Maniac Mike's? Stewart's mother, who also died of ALS, told him he was a maniac to want to take on the restaurant given the burnout he experienced the first go-round, when he worked 18-hour days without a day off for a year.
Cable said his cousin was a live wire, an unpredictable element that rounded out an otherwise staid family.
"He was a true-sense-of-the-word character," Cable said. "And everybody knows him, everybody knows that mustache, everybody knows Mike."
Ah, yes, that mustache. His upper lip was just its point of origin; from there, it plunged down both sides of his mouth to hang almost to his clavicle. When he waxed it, it would extend from his chin like wings.
A history buff who loved documenting stories about the airport, Stewart with his handlebar mustache resembled an Old West figure -- albeit one who favored Hawaiian shirts.
"His mustache was his trademark," Annette said. "He started growing it at age 23 and he never shaved it off. He'd feel naked without it."
He was clean-shaven when they met 40 years ago but soon began growing a mustache. His wife said: "I have a picture of him without it. He looked like a baby."
More stories about Stewart will be told this week. A meet and greet with the family is planned for
That celebration of Stewart's life will include remarks by Annette and others, a fly-by with a missing man formation, then a party with a taco bar. Show cars and motorcycles, both favorites of Stewart's, are encouraged.
"He touched a lot of people," Annette said. "I feel bad for their loss too. They stopped here first and then started their day. This was their home. We're going to rebuild their home for them."
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