Is Bill Knapp’s Our Most-Missed Restaurant?

Why is it that Bill Knapp’s restaurants were considered to be for senior citizens, when every time I went in there it was loaded with mostly people in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s? Was it just because they had senior citizen specials?

If it was considered to be a eating hangout for geezers, then why were younger people filling the seats?

I’LL TELL YOU WHY…because the food was good, that’s why (I dug the meat loaf)! And aside from that, it was more of a family restaurant instead of a feeding trough for geriatrics. EVERYONE – from womb to tomb – seemed to love Bill Knapp’s.

Clinton "Bill" Knapp founded his restaurant in 1948, opening the very first one in Battle Creek at SW Capital & Columbia.

There were Bill Knapp’s restaurants in Jackson, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo and outward through Indiana and Ohio.

What was their recipe for their famous au gratin potatoes? And why did the restaurants close if the establishments were so popular? To see their au gratin recipe and to read their sad closing story in an article on mlive, you can do so by CLICKING HERE.

The Bill Knapp's 4 locations in the Lansing area included:
Grand River Avenue (1955)
East Grand River Avenue (1966)
West Saginaw (1968)
South Cedar (1992)

By the time 2002 rolled around, Bill's company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and his last few restaurants were closed down for good on August 20 of that year.