Knightens selling Centre Dari King after 41 years

By Scott Wright

CENTRE — When Gordon Knighten was a young man trying to find his way in the world, it never occurred to him that he'd spend four decades of his life frying burgers and serving milkshakes in his hometown. Still, he and his wife Maxine have been doing that very thing since 1967.

After 41 years in the kitchen, though, Knighten says he's ready to sell his business and spend more time caring for his wife, who has recently taken ill. There's also a spot in the back yard he's been eyeing for a tomato garden. So, a few weeks ago, Knighten hung a for sale sign in front of the Dari King on West Main Street.

“I buy the best hamburger patties money can buy,” Knighten says, sitting atop a soft drink canister in his diner on a slow Wednesday afternoon. “And I've always done that. I wanted my business to be successful, and you can't do that by putting out a bunch of cheap stuff that people won't buy.”

“I've been doing that right,” he adds with a smile. “We've been doing a lot of stuff right down here for over 40 years. But I'm 86 years old and it's time for me to quit.”

Knighten says he's had a good life and career, but admits the kitchen at his little restaurant can be confining.

“We're open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weeknights, and until 11 p.m. on the weekends,” Knighten says. “And we used to stay open on Sundays for the after-church crowd, but we don't do that anymore. It got to be too much.”

Career opportunity

When Knighten was a boy, he attended Livingston School in the Pollard's Bend area in the mid-1930s. A decade later, he became a man in the battlefields of Europe. A member of the 11th Armored Division, Knighten saw action during World War II after he and his fellow soldiers finished their stateside training.

“We were shipped to Southampton, England, but when we got there Gen. Patton had taken all of our equipment -- all our tanks and halftracks,” Knighten says. “We weren't walking infantry, we were riding infantry. We eventually went through the Battle of the Bulge [in December 1944]. That was tough.”

After 3½ years in the Army, Knighten returned home to Cherokee County to try and make a living off the soil.

“I got out of the service in 1945 and came home and farmed for a couple years,” he says. “Then I got married and my wife didn't want me to farm. She wanted me to get a job somewhere because there wasn't much money in farming.”

Knighten's first job after he parked his plow was at an aluminum plant in Rome, Ga. He worked there until the business went under, then came home and worked odd jobs with his brother until a man named David Welch tapped into Knighten's Army training and changed his life forever.

“I had taken eight weeks of cooking and bakery school at Fort Knox, Kentucky when I was in the Army,” Knighten says. “I cooked for the officers and I'm not bragging, but they loved my cooking. One colonel told me my pumpkin pie was as good as his mother used to make.”

Based on the positive response he had received from his superiors, Knighten figured he'd take a chance on diners in his hometown enjoying his cooking, too.

“Welch wanted me to cook for him at the Dari Queen he ran on the other end of town, so I worked for him for two-and-a-half years,” Knighten says. “Then a man named Hill, who ran the Dari King on this end of town, came to me and said he wanted to sell his business to me.”

Knighten says when he told Mr. Hill he didn't have the money to buy a business, Hill suggested Knighten go to the bank and take out a loan.

“So that's what I did,” Knighten says with a laugh. “And they gave it to me! And that's how I got the Dari King.”

Getting going

Knighten took over the Dari King from Mr. Hill, but didn't run the place long before he felt “burned out” and moved all his cooking equipment into storage.

“Then one day, I saw Bunk Higgins putting up the building that's right beside us now, and I asked him to build be something small right beside it,” Knighten says. “He said he'd build me a 30x30 building, so I drew out how I wanted it laid out like I wanted it done inside and he built it for me in two weeks -- this building we're in right now.”

Knighten says customers starting lining up to order before he was even ready to open. And they've been coming back ever since.

“They were at the windows before I was even set-up good,” Knighten chuckles.

Knighten says the original idea for his Dari King was a seasonal ice cream shop. But it wasn't long before he and his wife realized they could make a living if they'd add sandwiches to the menu and stay open year-round.

“It worked out for us,” he says. “And at that time it was just us and the Dari Queen on the other end of town. When we first opened, a small hamburger was 19 cents and a large hamburger was 35 cents.”

Knighten says he and Welch were the only eateries in town for a long time, until the chain restaurants started showing up in Centre in the 1980s.

“But when they started popping up, I never noticed any difference,” he says. “A lot of my customers from those early days have moved away over the years, but a lot have moved back into town in the years since. And I'm getting them back as customers now.”

Knighten says there are plenty of days when he sees someone at one of his windows who remembers ordering his burgers and shakes 20 or 30 years ago.

“They'll tell me, 'the Dari King hasn't changed, it's still just as good as it was,'” he says. “That always makes you feel good.”
 

On the job

Knighten has had some “terrific young people” come through his business over the years, and says many have returned over the years to thank him for the opportunity to work for him.

“We've had people work for us who are now professors and lawyers and teachers,” Knighten says. “We even had one guy who is now the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company. Over the years, people have come back and said that they loved us for giving them the chance to get started out here.”

Family friend Betty Wells, who's helping out at the register while Maxine convalesces at home, says Mr. and Mrs. Knighten have produced plenty of admirers.

“They even get cards from some of their former employees,” she says. “I've read them.”

As delighted as Knighten is to tell the success stories of people who've worked for him over the years, he's just as pleased with the effort he and his staff put into creating his signature ice creams, sundaes and milkshakes every day.

“If you make a pineapple milkshake, put real pineapples in it. If you make strawberry, use real strawberries. You don't get a flavored milkshake here, you get the real thing,” he says. “That's why we've made so many of them over the years.”

Knighten says he hopes he'll be able to sell to someone who will keep the Dari King popular for generations. But he has a word of advice for any potential buyer: to be successful, be prepared to lay out your heart and soul.

“A lot of people think all you have to do is put a sandwich together, but you've got to put a little love in it, too,” Knighten says with a grin. “That's what makes them come back again.”