As Researched by Stephen D. Bowling

By 1976, the coal industry in Breathitt County, like most of eastern Kentucky, was booming. Hundreds of private contractors hauled the black gold from the South Fork and Troublesome Creek mines to company processing plants. After a quick wash and crushing, the coal was loaded on train cars for transportation to power plants and manufacturing facilities nationwide.

That steady stream of trucks caught the attention of numerous entrepreneurs who opened gas stations and restaurants to serve the needs of the coal truckers. One of those businesses established in the early days of the coal boom was the Mini-Burger.

Paul Watkins was one of those businessmen who saw an opportunity to make money. He and his wife, Norma Lee (Williams) Watkins, looked for a place to open a small restaurant that would serve the truck drivers hot meals with minimal waiting so that they could continue their routes. They located a suitable spot near the newly constructed Hurst Shopping Center on the new Highway just north of Jackson. A new Kentucky Fried Chicken was also planned for the location, and plans were announced for a Long John Silver’s Restaurant about a half mile away.

Watkins approached William R. “Bill” Hurst in January 1976 and negotiated a lease on a property known as Section 3 of Part 1 of the newly established Hurst Shopping Center. Watkins and his wife negotiated with Hurst to lease an unusual-shaped parcel of land described as “40 feet, by 100 feet, by 90 feet, by 115 feet” for “constructing a building to be used for the operation of a restaurant.” The “burger stand” land was near the shopping center’s south corner and included a large parking area and a space sufficient for trucks to turn and re-enter the highway.

Watkins agreed to a seven-year lease that included a guaranteed five-year extension. He and Hurst settled on a payment of $225 per month for the first portion of the lease and then $250 for the five years of the extension. Hurst also included several conditions in the agreement, including constructing an “attractive building” at an expense of not less than $25,000. In addition, Watkins agreed to haul dirt to level the surrounding area, construct a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot retaining wall, and erect a four-foot privacy fence behind the building and between the Hurst Shopping Center and the property of Douglas Graham.

The paperwork was completed, and the lease was signed on January 8, 1976.

In March 1976, construction on the thirty-two by forty-eight-foot-long “single-counter” burger stand started and rapidly progressed. The building was small but included ten tables for diners and two showers in the back for truckers. By late spring, the walls were up and the roof was on. The date the new restaurant opened is not recorded, but the sign went up in August, and the community was introduced to the Mini-Burger.     

Mini-Burger opened to customers with rave reviews. It was “something different,” and the community flocked to the new stand despite its tight quarters and limited seating. Many residents ordered their food and sat in their cars to eat. For two years, the eatery operated without many issues until 1978.

On March 13, Bill Hurst appeared before the City Council. He requested that the Jackson Police Department patrol the Hurst Shopping Center and warn or ticket big trucks that were “tearing up the lot and endangering customers” of the center’s other businesses. The Council had a “lengthy discussion” but tabled the matter until a special meeting on Thursday.

On Thursday, March 16, Mayor Leonard Noble called a special session of the Jackson City Council to address “parking issues” in the Hurst Shopping Center area.    

Hurst told the Council that he had asked Paul Watkins “in a nice way” to control the trucks pulling into the lot near the Mini-Burger. He said that he had not gotten a positive response from his lessees. He asked that the police keep the large coal trucks out of his lot.

Paul Watkins did not attend. Mrs. Watkins, owner of Mini-Burger, stated that the “truckers are 85 percent” of the business at the Mini-Burger. The Council asked several other questions of Watkins and Hurst, voted to “stay out of the problem,” and suggested that Hurst take the “problem to court, that differences should be settled between lessor and lessee.”

Rumors circulated that the Watkins family wanted out of the restaurant business and was looking to sublease to a new operator. Hurst insisted that the large trucks stay out of the Maloney’s parking lot. He ran a large advertisement in the paper complaining about the damage to his property and the lack of action by the City of Jackson.

Ralph and Monnie Rhea (Watkins) Cole took over the operation of the Mini-Burger for a brief time before Brenda Fugate took it over for several months.

The Watkinses started negotiations with Magistrate William T. “Bill” Back and his business partner to purchase the lease of the Mini-Burger. An agreement was reached, and on March 18, 1979, Paul and Norma Watkins signed the lease for Bill Back and Paul Burton to take over the operation of The Mini-Burger.  Louise Hatmaker, the editor of The Jackson Times, caught wind of the sale and broke the news of the transfer in her “Potpourri” column. Hatmaker reported that Back and Burton had purchased the lease and would change the business’s name to The Family Restaurant. 

One provision of the negotiation between Paul and Norma Watkins and Burton and Back was directly tied to the possibility that Jackson might someday “go wet.” In a separate agreement, Paul Watkins required the new owners to agree that if Jackson voted to allow alcohol sales, the lease contract would be “completely void and of no further effect,” so that the Watkins would have a one-half interest in the “net profits from said total restaurant business” and the revenue generated by alcohol sales.

Back, a county magistrate, announced the next week that the new owners were changing the business into “a place that caters to the whole family” rather than the “rough, trucker crowd,” and Back and Burton changed the name of the business to The Family Diner to reflect the new approach.

“It had a rough-like image,” Back said in a 2004 interview. “We wanted to change it.”

Back and Burton redesigned the menu and added new items, including several recipes from Back’s kitchen and family. The Family Diner’s signature meals included prime rib, catfish dinners, pork tenderloin sandwiches, biscuits and gravy each morning, meatloaf, and chicken and dumplings on Sunday afternoons. There was always a steady supply of coffee.

In 1982, Back doubled the restaurant’s size by adding to the front of the original building and installing a fireplace. He used several old wooden beams salvaged from the demolition of the old Breathitt High School building. The room was the first in Jackson to be designated as a “smoke-free room.”

On August 12, 1982, Bill Back formally incorporated the restaurant as Family Diner, Inc. with 1,000 shares. He held 500 shares, and 500 were issued to his partner, Paul Burton. After a disagreement, Bill Back purchased Paul Burton’s interest in the business on August 17, 1985, for $5,000 and started operating the Family Diner as its sole owner.

Back said he operated his restaurant based on “good service and good food.”

For years, Bill Back operated the Family Diner in a subleased building, owned by William Hurst and leased to him by Norma Watkins. In 1991, Norma Watkins purchased the property and building from Hurst for $50,000. Watkins agreed on April 15, 1996, to sell the property to Back, and they signed a Land Contract Purchase Agreement in which Back would pay for the building over a period of years.

On April 15, 1996, Back finalized the purchase of the building and property from Mona McCollum, Norma Watkins’ daughter, for $200,275.

A driver for The Lexington Herald was delivering newspapers to a vending machine in the area at 1:45 a.m. on Wednesday, April 7, 1999, when he noticed smoke coming from the back of the Family Diner. He called the Jackson Police Department, and fire crews arrived within minutes. They found a small fire burning in the restaurant’s kitchen, but the entire structure was filled with and damaged by smoke. The firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze. The restaurant was closed for a week while repairs and repainting were completed.

Bill Back told The Breathitt County Voice that it was his first fire and that there was “a positive to it all.” “I got to go to church for the first time in twenty years,” Back said. The Diner reopened on April 14.

In August 2004, the Family Diner marked its 25th anniversary, and The Breathitt County Voice printed a feature article about the anniversary. Back thanked all those who had worked for him during the years. He expressed his appreciation for the cooks, especially the waitresses, including Marlene Turner, Thelma Gross, Brenda Henson, Lou Helton, Alice McIntosh, Maxine Howard, and others.

The Diner hosted many family reunions and civic meetings in its large meeting room. The Kiwanis Club and the Jackson Woman’s Club held their monthly meetings at the Family Diner, and several businesses treated their staff to special holiday dinners each year.

Back operated his restaurant for twenty-seven years until the early morning hours of November 18, 2005. A Jackson Police officer noticed smoke and saw flames coming from the back of the building at 5:50 a.m. Fire crews were on the scene within five minutes, but the fire had made too much headway after getting into the attic. The portion of the building that housed the original Mini-Burger was destroyed in the blaze, but the new addition was saved.

Fire crews could not determine the exact cause of the blaze, but Back noted that “we fed the Kiwanis Club last night and the place was packed.” “This is a real shame,” Back said. After several days of debate, Back announced that he would not reopen the Family Diner.

“Twenty-seven years is a long time to be in business,” Back told The Jackson Times. “I think it’s long enough.”

In the following weeks, crews removed the debris from the fire and tore down the front room, carefully preserving the wooden beams.

The property sat vacant until 2012, when Bill Back and his wife, Ruth, sold the property to Thomas R. Miller of Clayhole.  Miller, his wife, Carol, and family opened Miller’s Corner Café on August 7, 2014. Miller operated the café serving coffee, donuts, home-cooked meals, and sandwiches for over a year. Miller’s Corner Café closed on September 11, 2015.

The building was later leased to the West Liberty Veterinary Clinic. In 2025, the building Miller constructed for the Corner Cafe was home to a walk-in veterinary clinic providing medical care for pets and animals in Jackson and the surrounding area.

Bill Back passed away on January 22, 2017, in Lexington. He was cremated.

While the Mini-Burger/Family Diner building no longer stands, the taste of Bill Back’s chicken and dumplings is a pleasant memory for many. The legacy of the experiences, the great food, and outstanding service lingers as we fondly remember the Family Diner.

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© 2025 Stephen D. Bowling