Bill Knapp’s Withdrawal
The specter of Bill Knapp’s still hangs over A2 like a, well, specter that refuses to go away. “I really miss some of the old Bill Knapp’s classics, such as chicken and biscuits,” writes a reader in today’s Connection, who we will assume is not a reader of this weblog trying to spoof the News. “This was a restaurant that many folks miss.” The Connection columnist was unable to provide the exact Knapp’s recipe, but offers a General Mills one instead.
As easy as it is to mock the Bill Knapps-obsessed Ann Arborites (they weren’t quite as ludicrously-enthralled in West Michigan), they did have possibly the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had. My grandma always used to bring me one on my birthdays when I was a kid… the frosting was incredible.
posted by Brandon on December 17th, 2003 at 4:43 pmBill Knapps was not an Ann Arbor thing. It was a Michigan chain with locations in Lansing, Okemos, Jackson, the Detroit suburbs, and probably many other places. My East Lansing parents took me there many times when I was a kid. Indeed, the best thing that could be said for Bill Knapps is that it was very kid-friendly. As the parent of a small child, that is not a trivial consideration.
I remember seeing a restaurant review in a college paper about twenty years ago that described Bill Knapps as being “full of women who look like your aunt.” Those aunt-like women and their husbands gradually aged over the years, and by the turn of the millenium, Bill Knapps’ main audience was senior citizens.
When somebody mourns Bill Knapps, though, they should be reminded of why specifically it failed after all those years.
First, there was the disastrous attempt to reposition the place to appeal to the missing young adults, with clashing paint colors, video games, loud music, and a dumb new slogan of “That was then — this is wow!” They drove away their core customers and (no surprise) failed to attract any young people.
Then sanity returned. The management scrambled — with obviously heartfelt apologies — to return to the old Bill Knapps and undo the damage. And the old customer base flocked back.
But restaurants operate on a thin profit margin. Revenue was back up again, but the months of losses had built a mountain of debt. So they went into Chapter 11 reorganization.
Wham! With news of the bankruptcy filing, all those “loyal customers” suddenly fled. Revenue dropped through the floor, and Bill Knapps was finished. Liquidation followed.
If Bill Knapps was so important to all those folks, why did they abandon it in its hour of need?
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 17th, 2003 at 4:59 pmOnce when my grandmother suggested Bill Knapps my grandfather said something I’ll never forget, “Who wants to gum sterile food with old people?” He was probably 70 at the time.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on December 17th, 2003 at 6:03 pmI saw lots of hair at Bill K’s…in my food. I think it was one from the 2,000,000 vibrating kids at the table next to us.
“Sir, smoking or Non-smoking?”
posted by Leighton on December 17th, 2003 at 6:56 pm“No Kids!”
I don’t know, I’m still not convinced that someone from this blog didn’t write that letter to the News (Boris?).
posted by Nick on December 17th, 2003 at 6:58 pmbrandon– if you’re jonesing for some bill knapp’s chocolate cake, i saw an entire table of premade ones at the meijer on zeeb and jackson. funny, i thought about aaio, and then came home to this post. maybe i’ll buy one just to see–but maybe premade cakes at meijer are like premade krispy kremes from a gas station.
posted by Beth on December 17th, 2003 at 7:18 pmI wish I *had* written that letter, Nick.
posted by Boris on December 17th, 2003 at 8:06 pmNo time like the present . . .
posted by Nick on December 17th, 2003 at 8:17 pmWait, these are Bill Knapps chocolate cakes at Meijer? How does that work if the company is gone? Interesting… hmmm.
posted by Brandon on December 17th, 2003 at 8:24 pmI was never much of a fan of Bill Knapps, other than as a tolerant place to go if you had a 3-year-old in your dining party. Still, the premade cakes at Meijer are nothing like the ones Bill Knapps had.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 17th, 2003 at 10:02 pmhttp://www.freep.com/features/food/rector22_20030422.htm
Here’s the scoop on that cake… the article says they are a perfect copy… I’ll need to check that out.
posted by Brandon on December 17th, 2003 at 10:23 pmI’ve been tinkering with the Genesis Code and it seems to me, if I’ve conjugated my Hebrew verbs correctly, that there’s a pattern here. The Lord has punished Annarbour for its sins by calling Bill Knapps home to Him. It’s because wicked Annarbourites claimed to love Bill Knapps, but really their hearts were hardened and they forsook The King of Knapps for golden calf sandwiches at Zingermans and false sundaes at Stucchi’s. When Bill Knapps bore the cross of bankruptcy, where were his followers? They denied him! They pretended never to have eaten at his restaurants! “Bright yellow gravy poured over rock-hard potatoes! Oh mercy me, we’d never eat that swill. Please pass the organic s’mores, darling…” Now, though, that the Bill Knapps manna from heaven has dried up, they see the error of their ways and, yea, there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Some sort of mass penance is required to appease God and end this drought of tortilla soup. Only then will God allow his only begotten family restaurant to return to Washtenaw County. Bill Knapps will come again in glory to bake the chicken and the bread, and his kingdom shall have no end.
posted by Boris on December 18th, 2003 at 12:32 pmBoris, that was entertaining.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on December 18th, 2003 at 1:23 pmI need to stop letting Boris post stuff that’s that much better than what I said on the front page.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 18th, 2003 at 6:13 pmCornpone Opinion:
I never ate at Bill Knapp’s. Nothing on the menu really provoked my interest and I am not feeling particularly apologetic for that. There is not a single eatery in Ann Arbor a good cook would find interesting. Zingerman’s has been built on offering hard to obtain, and often expensive ingredients. It has relatively little to offer in the way of real cooking. Most everything is some sort of designer cheese melted with a designer meat of some configuration. Am I tempted to find out what that sort of place can do with macaroni and cheese at an exhorbitant price?
The real tragedy is that my fellow residents can’t cook. Not being able to cook how can they be expected to eat? Granted, I probably think cooking is a more serious matter than most folk, but I’m in good company. Critical thinking in any vein is quite rare. When I was quite young I was “taught” that there are four tastes, sweet, sour, bitter and salt. I always knew that was silly; Aristotle adds more, the Japanese gave us umami. Remember that “muddy’ taste from Uncle Joe’s fresh catfish? Remember the “grassy’ taste of munching on a stem of timothy weed? how about fresh butter? what category does that belong in?
What is real cooking? Turning Sunday’s ham bone into Monday’s red beans and rice with little more than green pepper and onions (and sometimes not those) is a good, but probably foreign, example. It is transmogrification, transsubstantiation, it is conjure-it is, in short, the most natural and simple of rites, limited only by imagination and passion.
The chicanery that passes for cookery in these parts is defined by the ability to get a cookbook into print. Most restaurant cooks are illusionists. Only a few have the humility to admit that, even to themselves.
More specifically, there are innumerable joints around that serve what they call “gumbo”. It is usually an over-seasoned, muddy construction of burned roux, various soup bases and some sort of seafood, containing okra and the parting shot of filé powder. Without exception these faux gumbeaux lead one to believe that a decent gumbo cannot be built north of I-10.
That is not the case.
There are local products just as good or better than any found in new orleans-for instance the makers of the incomparable Dearborn Ham make the best andouille sausage outside the Upperline. Nobody makes boudin blanc or chaurice, but I’ll pass over that.
Ann Arbor “art” is much the same-it is a craft product pure and simple-sometimes done very well.
Taste per se, in almost all things, is the product of memory and hunger of various sorts.
From my experience the last place anyone should go to learn about real cooking is Wastenaw Community college. Schoolcraft is better, but the product they have to work with is almost as inferior.
In 1901 the Times Picayune published their Creole cookbook. The old Creole cooks and their skills were dying off rapidly. In this area we are faced with the same sad condition. The old “soul food” cooks are fading without having their traditions transmitted. How many of you can cook neckbone and turnips the way my friend Nicole’s mama does-with green beans and new potatoes and a “soul food salsa” of chopped tomatoes and onions? Instead of charging into the breach the Detroit Free Press puts out some exotic menu of their choice for best restaurant-an oriental-inspired ultra high buck construction in Farmington Hills featuring a little fish, three starches on the plate and a dab of sauce. Ugh!
For those Bill Knapp’s biscuits you crave try making biscuits from White Lily flour with lard (yes, lard!) as the shortening. Not everybody can make buscuits the first time-or the 10th or the 100th-but eventually you get it. Like bread it’s somewhat tempermental. You won’t find New Orleans bread here either, the kind that explodes crumbs all over the counter when you slice it. If you feel you just absolutely have to have levain bread made from wild yeast this is the year to get your start-the huge wild grape crop gives you more than you will need.
I’ll stop now.
posted by oof on December 29th, 2003 at 7:26 pmCornpone Opinion:
I never ate at Bill Knapp’s. Nothing on the menu really provoked my interest and I am not feeling particularly apologetic for that. There is not a single eatery in Ann Arbor a good cook would find interesting. Zingerman’s has been built on offering hard to obtain, and often expensive ingredients. It has relatively little to offer in the way of real cooking. Most everything is some sort of designer cheese melted with a designer meat of some configuration. Am I tempted to find out what that sort of place can do with macaroni and cheese at an exhorbitant price?
The real tragedy is that my fellow residents can’t cook. Not being able to cook how can they be expected to eat? Granted, I probably think cooking is a more serious matter than most folk, but I’m in good company. Critical thinking in any vein is quite rare. When I was quite young I was “taught” that there are four tastes, sweet, sour, bitter and salt. I always knew that was silly; Aristotle adds more, the Japanese gave us umami. Remember that “muddy’ taste from Uncle Joe’s fresh catfish? Remember the “grassy’ taste of munching on a stem of timothy weed? how about fresh butter? what category does that belong in?
What is real cooking? Turning Sunday’s ham bone into Monday’s red beans and rice with little more than green pepper and onions (and sometimes not those) is a good, but probably foreign, example. It is transmogrification, transsubstantiation, it is conjure-it is, in short, the most natural and simple of rites, limited only by imagination and passion.
The chicanery that passes for cookery in these parts is defined by the ability to get a cookbook into print. Most restaurant cooks are illusionists. Only a few have the humility to admit that, even to themselves.
More specifically, there are innumerable joints around that serve what they call “gumbo”. It is usually an over-seasoned, muddy construction of burned roux, various soup bases and some sort of seafood, containing okra and the parting shot of filé powder. Without exception these faux gumbeaux lead one to believe that a decent gumbo cannot be built north of I-10.
That is not the case.
There are local products just as good or better than any found in new orleans-for instance the makers of the incomparable Dearborn Ham make the best andouille sausage outside the Upperline. Nobody makes boudin blanc or chaurice, but I’ll pass over that.
Ann Arbor “art” is much the same-it is a craft product pure and simple-sometimes done very well.
Taste per se, in almost all things, is the product of memory and hunger of various sorts.
From my experience the last place anyone should go to learn about real cooking is Wastenaw Community college. Schoolcraft is better, but the product they have to work with is almost as inferior.
In 1901 the Times Picayune published their Creole cookbook. The old Creole cooks and their skills were dying off rapidly. In this area we are faced with the same sad condition. The old “soul food” cooks are fading without having their traditions transmitted. How many of you can cook neckbone and turnips the way my friend Nicole’s mama does-with green beans and new potatoes and a “soul food salsa” of chopped tomatoes and onions? Instead of charging into the breach the Detroit Free Press puts out some exotic menu of their choice for best restaurant-an oriental-inspired ultra high buck construction in Farmington Hills featuring a little fish, three starches on the plate and a dab of sauce. Ugh!
For those Bill Knapp’s biscuits you crave try making biscuits from White Lily flour with lard (yes, lard!) as the shortening. Not everybody can make buscuits the first time-or the 10th or the 100th-but eventually you get it. Like bread it’s somewhat tempermental. You won’t find New Orleans bread here either, the kind that explodes crumbs all over the counter when you slice it. If you feel you just absolutely have to have levain bread made from wild yeast this is the year to get your start-the huge wild grape crop gives you more than you will need.
I’ll stop now.
posted by oof on December 29th, 2003 at 7:26 pmOof.thanks for stopping..you really weren’t saying anything anyway…
posted by Bud on January 9th, 2004 at 3:04 pmbud… thank you for exemplifying the tendency among certain americans to impugn the words and thoughts of someone whose point of view is different enough from the herd-mentality media pablum as to require actual open-mindedness to digest. you will find that it is YOU who have nothing to say. to oof i say keep talking. i concur with the zingerman’s thing. the emperor has no clothes. and few know the difference cause fellas like bud push for a cultural lowest common denominator to cover their own insecurities. i’m off, kids. i was looking for salsa dancing in ann arbor and it brought me here. that’s my 2 cents.
posted by mavis on January 22nd, 2004 at 2:54 amWhat I would like is to obtain a recipe for Bill Knapps 1000 island dressing.
posted by George on March 2nd, 2004 at 11:39 amI remember Bill Knapp’s fondly. Ate there many times with family over about 40 years. They served decent food at a decent price. Simple food, old-fashioned food. Meatloaf and mashed potatos with green beans. Chicken and biscuits with cut corn. Nothing to write home about, but comfort food at a decent price. It was a place to meet family and have a simple meal and talk a while. No booze, so you never had to worry about that uncle that always got tipsy when you went to ‘fancy’ places (with exotic sounding menu items). Bill Knapp’s would never make anybody’s ratings guide. Yet, it held a special place in the hearts of some people who lived nearby. I think that may have been due more to the times shared at Bill Knapp’s than to the food served there.
It reminds me of the old MSU Union cafeteria. Good food, simple food, at a decent price. A place where people went to eat with family or friends. Not for a deluxe meal, but for the sharing of a meal with family and friends. Sometimes, the mystical beauties of a simple meal can ease us into a real communion with our fellow diners. The simple and delicious Bill Knapp’s chocalate cake with a cup of coffee could lead to a real and beautiful moment of sharing with someone you loved. The wonderfully simple baked sole at the MSU Union could do the same. Maybe, there are some restaurants that we go to precisely because we all agree not to be impressed with the great food. Because we all agree that the food is not to be an issue at all (as long as it is decent food). That we are just meeting there to be together for a while.
I have been to some of the best restaurants in the world, but that experience seems to be about the food. Nobody went to Bill Knapp’s for the food. The food there was entirely incidental to the purpose of meeting some other people there. In short, seeing old uncle Bob was more important than having a great meal.
So, if some people wonder why some Michiganders have a soft spot in their hearts for old Bill Knapp’s, they might better look to the emotions and sharing of the diners that ate there than the food that was served there.
I have fond memories of Bill Knapp’s. Yes, there were some menu items I liked (like the chocolate cake and the au gratin potatos). But, it was not the food that made those fond memories. It was the people and the sharing that happened there. Somehow, the place itself, the food itself, was able to fade away and allow a mutual and gentle sharing of some simple time with family and friends. The food ‘got out of the way’ and the sharing took over.
Fancy foods and fancy restaurants are wonderful. Simple foods and simple restaurants can be too. Anyone who ever ate at Bill Knapp’s knows that Bill Knapp’s was not fancy in any way. If they have a fond memory of dining at Bill Knapp’s it is not about the food, it is about the memories they shared while dining there.
At least, that is why I personally have fond memories for Bill Knapp’s (at least before they went modern).
posted by Jeffrey on March 16th, 2004 at 7:01 pmI used to work at Bill Knapps, back in the high school years. and while the service was often bad, the food more microwaved then anything, and the salad station more unsanitary then Id like to admit, I enjoyed some of the food. I miss Bill Knapps, now that I cant have it, I crave it. I dont think Bill’s should get a bad name about the oldies that ate there. its not like your going there to meet people. Ill have good memories of Bill’s Nadds.
posted by Katie C on April 4th, 2004 at 9:22 pmI worked for Bill Knapps for 4 years…You really dont want to know what went on behind the kitchen door! When a restaurant is low on cash, Think how they save money… In the kitchen. It was gross and management did everything to scrape and pinch…for real!
posted by Kelly on April 30th, 2004 at 8:30 pmI din’t eat at Bill Knapp’s til after I turned 50. I just didn’t qualify. And then I really liked it. It was comfortable and I could get away and eat in peace…until the kids came. Then I stopped going. We tried to like it but we just wanted the old comfort back. Especially the bean soup. I make a version of it but alas, my husband still prefers Bill’s. A lot of the food was crummy but what was good was wonderful. Those cheesy potatoes can’t be beat.
posted by carlye on May 31st, 2004 at 7:30 pmWow, I forgot all of the wonderful things. The cake and the chicken and bisquits were firmly in mind, but the bean soup, the thousand island dressing and the cheesy potatoes… I remember them now, and miss them.
posted by Drew on July 12th, 2004 at 11:31 am