Annie’s Diner continues its legacy with new owner
A Utah-style deep-fried scone, slathered with honey butter, is a signature breakfast item at Annie's Diner in Kaysville.
The popular Cowboy burger is a half-pound beef patty, topped with bacon, onion rings and pepper jack cheese.
Annie's Diner owner Jason Sanders, left, with managers Braden Bijold and Mo Bijold.
The mushroom and Swiss burger is a half-pound patty with grilled mushrooms, onions and Swiss cheese.
Annie's Diner is known for its chicken-fried steak, with gravy and hash browns that are made from scratch.
Annie's Diner has an old-fashioned ambiance.
Granny Annie’s in Kaysville was one of Jason Sander’s favorite go-to restaurants. So when the Kaysville attorney heard the 75-year-old owner, Annie Curry, was going to close it, he was compelled to act.
“I came here all the time,” Sanders said, “My mother-in-law and father-in-law even have menu items named after them. When we heard she wanted to sell and couldn’t find anyone, I knew I had to buy it.”
Having worked in five different restaurants putting himself through college, “I knew how stupid I was buying a restaurant. But I love our staff, our food and being here chatting with people.”
But, he had a legal practice to run. So he turned to his nephew, Braden Bijold, and his wife, Mo Bijold, who owned a catering business. Braden was a manager at Target but had worked in various restaurants since age 16.
Mo, whose family had owned an event planning company, had been a cook, a caterer and a server. “So I’ve done all the aspects of a restaurant,” Mo Bijold said.
They took over management in August 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We built a budget that could handle six months of the pandemic when we bought it,” Sanders said. “And six months later, we began to be profitable. Things are starting to stabilize.”
The original owner, Annie Sill Curry, grew up working in her parents’ Sill’s Café, the longtime Layton landmark known for its down-home breakfasts. When she opened Granny Annie’s in 2003, it soon gained a reputation for its tried-and-true breakfast menu, including the signature Kaysville Special — hash browns, eggs, bacon, gravy and a Utah-style scone for $7.99.
For those new to Utah, “scones,” are not the dainty muffins nibbled at British tea, but hearty deep-fried discs of dough as big as a Frisbee, slathered with a big blob of honey butter.
Annie’s daughter and granddaughter still work at the restaurant, Sanders said, and Annie visits occasionally. He changed the name to Annie’s Diner, he said, “because she’s not here, but we wanted to keep her name in it. We are carrying on the heart that Annie had when she opened this place. We are elevating it.”
And the made-from-scratch diner classics continue.
“Our chicken-fried steak is a classic and one of our most popular breakfast items,” Sanders said. “And the gravy is homemade every day.”
“The cooks come in early so we can make everything fresh,”Braden Bijold said. “For our hash browns, we cook real potatoes every morning and shred them. We can go through about 350 pounds of potatoes.”
The restaurant has a loyal following. “A lot of menu items are named after regulars that ordered something so often that Annie would name it after them,” Mo Bijold said. Such as Ned’s Breakfast — hash browns, eggs and a choice of breakfast meat. Or Donnie’s Omelet of ham, bacon, sausage and cheese.
“When I get here at 5 a.m., there are already guys sitting out in their cars in the parking lot who walk in with me, and they know how to start the coffee machine,” Braden Bijold said. “They will sit for three or four hours here drinking coffee.”
The new management soon found out you don’t mess with tradition — including the thick-cut bacon. When a supplier inadvertently delivered an order of thin bacon, the staff cooked and served it. “And we nearly had a riot, with customer complaints and people posting on Facebook. We called it Bacon-gate,” Sanders said.
In the beginning, the Bijolds planned to cut the large menu in half by omitting items that weren’t selling. But after the first week, they had sold every dish on the menu and felt they couldn’t delete anything.
“There are people who come in specifically for liver and onions,” Braden Bijold said.
Instead of dropping items, they’ve added six signature burgers and are expanding salad options, as well as bakery items like pie, cake and cookies.
“Annie’s did well for breakfast, so that side was plug-and-play,” Braden Bijold said. “But we wanted to find a way to elevate lunch and dinner.”
The new burgers start with a juicy half-pound patty. The most popular, the Cowboy, is topped with bacon, onion rings, barbecue sauce and pepper jack cheese.
The second favorite is the ginormous Cadillac, with two half-pound patties, four strips of thick-sliced bacon and four slices of cheese.
Another favorite is the mushroom and Swiss burger, with grilled mushrooms, Swiss cheese and sautéed onions.
And there’s the scone sandwich — a deep-fried scone is cut in half and made into a sandwich with roast turkey or roast beef. “It’s unique; you’ll never find it anywhere else,” Mo Bijold said.
The French fries are made from fresh potatoes that are parboiled, then battered and fried, so they’re crispy on the outside and tender inside. The crunchy, battered onion rings are also made in-house.
“So many people associate us with breakfast, but we want them to know about our burgers, and our dinners that are all homemade,” Mo Bijold said. “We roast our turkey and beef every day. It takes us two hours to make our mashed potatoes, with real potatoes.”
The event center in the back of the restaurant has seating for 120, or standing room for 300.
“We get a lot of business meetings, yoga class on Tuesday nights and weddings,” said Mo Bijold, who oversees the events center.
Although Annie’s is known for diner food, when it comes to events, “we can do really great high-scale food,” said Braden Bijold, noting a recent wedding dinner of salmon and risotto, crème brûlée and chocolate torte.
Mo Bijold adds that if you have an unusual order, such as a recent one for 200 slices of cooked bacon for takeout, “If it’s within our range, we will go to great lengths to figure it out for you.”
ANNIE’S DINER
Location: 286 N. 400 West, Kaysville
Contact: 801-544-8817; https://www.anniesdiner.com/
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Price range: $2.99 (scone with honey butter) to $14.99 (Cadillac burger)
Food
