Jim's owner prepares for an emotional closing

The thrum of conversation is cheerful, welcoming, even uplifting as you walk in the front door of Jim's Restaurant.

Typically, unless you're one of those there at 6 a.m., you'll be squeezed for a few moments into a front corner, facing the queue of exiting diners who are lined up and paying at the cash register.

The space is narrow — this is, after all, a true American diner — and the conversational hum constant. Waiters, waitresses, cooks and busboys move as if on roller blades, zipping about in a rhythm that rarely seems to pause.

Owner Elena Knapp is doing what she has done for the 14 years she has owned Jim's, taking orders, pouring coffees, kissing and hugging the regulars who are too numerous to even try to count.

On this day, some are bringing flowers, and the hugs and kisses last longer than usual. And, while the chatter is, as always, spirited, on this day there are tears.

Before the day is over, Elena Knapp — between smiles, between laughs, between jokes — will have cried more tears than anyone.

"This place is like a family," Knapp said Thursday.

On Saturday, Jim's Restaurant at 233 North Winton Road in the city is scheduled to close. The property is part of a site planned for an Aldi grocery store — a supermarket with fluid plans but one that Aldi officials say they plan to have open by year's end.

The neighborhood does not lack for supermarkets, with a Wegmans, Tops and PriceRite all nearby, but some neighbors see a need for Aldi. Others consider the project unnecessary.

Knapp has kept her distance from the neighborhood kerfuffle. Instead, she has continued to do what she has done for 17 years, when she first started at Jim's as a waitress. She has ensured that customers get the quick service and affordable food and good cheer that have been the diner's trademarks.

There is no class, no social strata at Jim's, Knapp says. She remembers the homeless man who would come in regularly and chat with then-Mayor Bob Duffy. There are the construction workers piling in before early morning shifts, often leaving as a stream of suited businessmen and businesswomen roll in.

"It's my restaurant but it's their diner," Knapp says.

The very first day she walked in, she said, she was charmed. She decided then that she wanted to own and operate Jim's, which was then owned by a friend who hired her. When he purchased another restaurant, she bought Jim's from him.

"I bought it May 16, 2001."

And, on Saturday, May 16, it will close. Knapp is prepared for the day to be emotional, for the return of the throngs of locals who consider Jim's a second home.

For years, they have brought their own coffee mugs, which hang by the dozens above the counter. Here, they've met friends old and new, consummated business deals, watched as the community's muckety-mucks meshed with the community.

"I just came with friends, and the food was very good and the service was always great," said Bruce Lindsay, a local Realtor who has been a regular for more than a decade.

He marvels at Knapp's work ethic. A diner does not have beer or wine with inflated prices to bolster profits.

"A diner's hard because you're making it on pennies," he said. "Your eggs and bacon had better be good on every plate."

Before Knapp, multiple owners named "Jim" ran the restaurant during the past five decades. Esquire magazine once noticed Jim's, listing it among the "Top 27 Places (in the U.S.) Where Men Eat." (Regulars know that many women eat there also, but Esquire does have its largely male audience.)

The restaurant, the magazine wrote, is hard to notice. "It's the most invisible spot in a belovedly invisible town," Esquire said.

This has been a tough year for Knapp. She has a second restaurant — appropriately named Jim's Too — at 785 E. Main St., but that operation has been closed for months because of a fire. She hopes to reopen this summer.

She wanted to keep Jim's open until the site was ready to be cleared, but her landlord asked that the restaurant close in May, she said.

On Saturday, she and her four children, ages 24 to 30, will work at Jim's. Knapp will do what she always does — awake by 3:30 a.m. and be at the restaurant an hour or so later. There have been days when customers were already at the restaurant.

"I said, 'Come on guys, I don't even have my make-up on," she said.

On Sunday, Knapp said, she'll wake up later than usual, then run the Lilac 10K. She hopes the run can waylay the emotion, she said.

"I'll probably be crying the whole day."

GCRAIG@DemocratandChronicle.com