Jack's Diner, a landmark greasy spoon in the heart of Downtown since Jack Holt opened his namesake in 1942, has been closed for almost a year. But last Thursday, a security guard on his lunch break looked inside and got the news that Chris Kowalski's loyal customers have been seeking. "Yeah, I'm going to reopen soon," Kowalski said with a wide grin.

They walk through the alley and peer into the old diner looking for signs of life.

These hungry people wear business suits, flannel shirts, police uniforms, scrubs and everything in between. Some cup their hands around their faces and press against the door, wondering whether they will ever see anything but darkness inside their favorite spot for breakfast or lunch.

Jack�s Diner, a landmark greasy spoon in the heart of Downtown since Jack Holt opened his namesake in 1942, has been closed for almost a year. But last Thursday, a security guard on his lunch break looked inside and got the news that Chris Kowalski�s loyal customers have been seeking.

�Yeah, I�m going to reopen soon,� Kowalski said with a wide grin.

�You are going to make a lot of people happy,� Troy Brower, 35, told Kowalski. �We have been coming by here all the time hoping you were coming back. We missed you.�

Kowalski, Jack�s owner and the man working the grill since 2004, has missed his people, too. It�s one of the biggest reasons he plans to be back in business at 52 E. Lynn St. with an updated menu by the end of this month � no later than May. It will return to its familiar hours of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays.

But Kowalski had to put himself back together before he could focus on getting the restaurant back in order.

He lost his wife, Kathy, to cancer in January 2015. Chris is the one who takes care of thousands of hungry people who love coming to a community melting pot where, on any given day, you could see a governor eating hash browns from a counter stool next to a trash hauler eating a double cheeseburger. Even actor John Travolta stopped by for bite.

But it was Kathy who took care of Chris. And a few months after she passed, Chris was lost in grief and closed the diner on May 4, 2015.

�I guess I never gave myself a chance to grieve,� said Chris, 49, who was married for 17 years. � But I know she would want me to get back behind the grill.�

They were training for their first full marathon together in the winter of 2014 when Kathy started to feel more sluggish than normal during the long-distance runs.

Sluggishness soon turned to exhaustion for the woman who owned an interior-design business. The Clintonville couple had taken up running about two years earlier to lose weight and had progressed from completing 5Ks to running half-marathons. Then, with help from their beloved Team In Training running group, they were shooting for 26.2 miles.

Chris, who had shed almost 30 pounds with the running, finished the hilly Cincinnati marathon.

Kathy never made it to the starting line. She went to the doctor for a simple blood test and was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that develops in bone marrow.

The outlook was optimistic for several months as chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and other treatments at Ohio State�s James Cancer Hospital seemed to be going well. She was declared to be 90 percent in remission by autumn.

�We thought the worst-case scenario was three to five years and maybe even full recovery,� Chris said. �You never would have known she was sick most days. She was so tough. You never heard her say, �I�m going to die.��

But just before Thanksgiving, doctors discovered that the cancer had spread to her spinal fluid. Her condition eroded quickly. She lost her ability to walk, although she refused to let Chris carry her upstairs and participated in the Parade of Homes in a wheelchair. Then, her liver failed, and her lungs; and eventually, she could barely see.

Kathy survived long enough to reach her goal of celebrating one more Christmas and Chris�s birthday on New Year�s Eve. Kathy didn�t work at the diner, but she loved holidays and would help Chris for hours and hours plastering the restaurant with decorations for every major holiday.

She died at age 52 on Jan. 7, 2015.

�All of us regular customers from Jack�s went to her service,� said Jon Kelly, 64, a retired attorney from Upper Arlington. �It was a melting pot of people, just like the diner itself. Our connection to Chris goes far beyond food.�

For a few months, Chris continued working the grill and accepting condolences from his customers. Then things started breaking or coming apart in the diner, which is a collection of original materials from when Jack�s prepared to move from High Street to Lynn in 1974. Chris�s parents also were having health problems, and life�s frustrations started to mount.

So he walked away from the diner last May and wasn�t sure he was ever again going to work behind the grill a block from the Statehouse in the shadow of the Rhodes Tower. People asked him time and again if he would reopen, but he had no real answers for them. Others tried to buy it from him while the building landlords waited patiently.

�I talked to him a couple of times and tried to kick him in the butt a little,� said Dick Hilsheimer, 49, a member of the Columbus police bicycle patrol who ate at Jack�s nearly every day it was open. �I was like, �Come on Chris, it�s time to get back into the game.� I can�t tell you how many people would ask me if the diner was going to open again.�

There wasn�t an exact time or moment that Chris can recall, but a few weeks ago the constant support and encouragement from his legion of customers finally swayed him to reopen Jack�s.

There is much to be done in the next couple of weeks. Lots of cleaning and prepping. But when the diner officially returns to life in the century-old Wheeler Building, people still will be able to order breakfast all day.

They will see Chris behind the grill again, and many of the servers who had been working at the diner for years. They will again hear lawyers, bus drivers, judges, janitors, lawmakers and others playfully arguing over politics at the counter or debating how good the Buckeyes football team will be in the fall.

�I don�t get rich doing this, but I really missed all of my people,� Chris said. �I just couldn�t walk away from what�s been a landmark in the Downtown. And Kathy wouldn�t have wanted me too, either.�

mwagner@dispatch.com

@MikeWagner48