The Mugs Up Diner interior has a long and celebrated history throughout the 20th Century. Originally, it was a small eight-seat roadside diner purchased in 1947 by Harry Liggett (a wealthy businessman and owner of the hotel in Herington, Kansas). Liggett had the diner set-up near to the train tracks in Herington and served food & coffee to weary passengers on short stopovers. By the 1960s, with th
e decline of railroad travel and the death of Liggett, the diner was sold and moved to nearby Enterprise, Kansas, where it was combined with another diner and operated for a couple more decades, until it closed down in the eighties. In 1990, while driving through Enterprise, Rick Uhlig noticed the closed diner. At the time, Uhlig was working in Kansas City on the crew of the motion picture, DETOUR (a remake of the film noir classic). The script called for some scenes to take place in a 1940s-era roadside diner. Uhlig talked to producer/director Wade Williams about purchasing the diner for use as a film set, thus saving them from having to build one. Williams readily agreed and acquired it. The diner was dismantled and relocated to The Filmworks Studios in Kansas City, where it was subsequently used in the opening and closing scenes of the film. Fast-forward to the Fall of 2011: After being in storage in the Filmworks warehouse for over twenty years, Williams found a new use for the diner. He refurbished it and had it installed in the storefront next to the Englewood Theatre, calling it, The Detour Coffee Shop.
“Not only is the diner set-up vintage and authentic,” Williams states, “but the front door is off the old Aztec Theatre in Shawnee, the vestibule light is from the Ben Bolt Theatre in Chillicothe and the stainless ‘Coffee Shop’ sign is from the old President Hotel in downtown Kansas City.”
The operator of The Mugs Up Diner is Ann Hinojosa, the owner of the Mugs Up Drive-In (the 1950s-era root beer & burger stand on 23rd, east of Noland Rd.). In a bit of serendipity, both were designed and built by the Valentine Manufacturing Co. in Wichita, Kansas.
