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Gray's Restaurant to snuff out smoking section on Nov. 1
Maryville Daily Forum
10/29/2009
Maryville, Mo. -
Gray's Truck Stop & Restaurant on the Highway 136 loop just north of Maryville is one of those classic highway diners that every town ought to have but doesn't anymore — the kind of place where farmers, truckers and tradesmen pull in at first light for eggs-over-easy, a plateful of biscuits and gravy, or maybe just coffee and a cigarette.
Well, nix on the cigarettes. Bowing to the winds of a changing culture, the popular eatery will go smoke-free Sunday, Nov. 1, a move that comes just as the city of Maryville is considering expanding its no-smoking statute, which applies to restaurants and banquet halls, to all workplaces inside the city limits.
For years, anyone pulling into Gray's for a meat-and-sides dinner or a burger-and-fries lunch has walked through the often-crowded smoking section, where men in work clothes and seed caps sit talking and, well, blowing smoke. There's a smoke-free dining area on the other side of the counter and an electric smoke eater sitting on a high shelf, but the place has always smelled like burning tobacco.
But more and more, said Marc Neff, who owns and operates Gray's along with partners Tim and Dave Thompson, that's just not what customers want. The decision to go smoke-free, he said, is based on dollars and nothing else.
"It's just a business decision," Neff said from his office on the gas station side of the truck stop toward the end of Thursday's breakfast rush. "We certainly don't have anything against smokers."
In a tough economy, Neff said, the owners believe their iconic truck stop is losing business to restaurants inside the city limits, where smoking has been banned since 2003. Getting rid of the smokers, they're betting, will bring those customers back and attract new ones as well.
As smoking bans grow more popular nationwide, restaurant and bar owners often voice fears that getting rid of cigarettes is bad for business, "but we're looking at it the other way," Neff said.
Responses from Gray's customers have been mixed, but of about 25 patrons seated in the smoking section of the diner shortly after 8 a.m. on Thursday, only a couple had lit up.
"We've heard it both ways, but there has definitely been a positive response" to going smoke-free, Neff said. 'We've had people say that they will definitely start coming out here more now. Of course there are some who say they didn't appreciate it."
One of those “coffeeing” at Gray's Thursday morning, who identified himself only as "Dan," said the smoking ban was "a good deal."
"I don't want to get anybody mad at me, but if you need to smoke you can go outside," he said. "I think it's going to be nice, and you can bring your family out. The smoking is the reason my kids won't come in here. "Gray's assistant manager Trudi Karr, herself a smoker, said she thinks the cigarette ban will be good for business.
"People who don't come in because of the smoke will be coming back," she said. "I'm sure some people who smoke will probably find somewhere else to go, but a lot of them will still come in, even though they do smoke."
Bill Baker is one of those who lights up but plans on staying put.
"I'll still come out here. I can live without it (smoking)," he said. "But I just don't like people telling you what you can and can't do."
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