If all goes as planned, McAlister’s Deli, 2230 S. Range Line Road, will open Monday.

The restaurant is one of three that Craig Bothwell, a former president of Mazzio’s Corp., is opening this fall. The others are in Lawrence, Kan., and Shawnee, Okla. He owns 13 of the restaurants.

“When I left Mazzio’s, I still wasn’t sure what concept I would pursue, but I did know that it had to be fast-casual, appeal to a broad demographic and be well-known and proven but still allow its franchisees the opportunity to grow,” said Bothwell, 58. “After researching about six concepts, I found McAlister’s to encompass all of those requisites and more.”

Founded by a dentist and his two sons in 1989, at Ridgeland, Miss., McAlister’s menu includes a wide variety of sandwiches, spuds, soups, salads and desserts, as well as vegetarian selections, a children’s menu, appetizers and beverages. Items range from $3.95 to $6.95, with an average per-person check of $7.20.

The menu is designed around food products that do not have to be cooked on traditional gas-fired stoves or in fryers. Meat products are purchased pre-cooked and heated as needed. The baked potatoes are cooked in convection ovens.

“The wonderful thing about McAlister’s is that such a wide variety of people — from my college-aged children to my in-laws in their late 70s — enjoy the food. Not many restaurants can claim that,” said Bothwell.

More on Timberline

In letting readers know about the reopening of Timberline Steakhouse last week, I made a big mistake. I referred to the steakhouse as the former Frisco Depot. Duh. It was the Missouri-Pacific depot. I knew that, but as time passes things like your memory, I guess, are the first to go.

But the mistake opened a window on the past. I received two e-mails and three telephone calls from people who caught the error. The telephone calls were wonderful.

One of them was from a successful Joplin businessman, now in his 80s, whose ancestors arrived at the depot in 1907. They were immigrants to a new country who found their way to a boomtown. He painted a vision of what it was like to arrive in Joplin. The sidewalks were wooden planks. “Dunkeys,’’ pulling water wagons to keep the dust down, could be seen on Main Street. Another caller, a woman in her 80s, told a delightful story of how her mother came to a bustling Joplin in 1910.

I also received a call from David Glenn, a local real-estate agent, who saved the building from certain destruction. He told me how the railroad company had issued an edict than any unoccupied Missouri-Pacific structure would be razed because of liability issues.

“I called them up in Omaha and asked them whether they realized that this was a solid-stone building. They basically said: ‘We don’t care.’ They said transients were living in it and that someone could sue them,’’ said Glenn. “For me, it became one of those stand-in-front-of-the-bulldozer kind of stories. That building is dear to my heart.’’

Glenn said he had 90 days to tear down the building and move it. There were 4,500 stones. Each was numbered. The stones were exposed to the elements for years before Glenn could reassemble the structure. Half of the numbers washed away.

“We had to put it together on the ground to make sure it would fit before we mortared it back together,’’ he said. “It was a painstaking task.’’

Glenn would have been sickened if Joplin firefighters had been unable to stop the Aug. 29 fire that temporarily closed the restaurant.

The telephone calls gave me an opportunity to share my only real memory of the depot when it was at 10th and Main streets. I remember going there and boarding a train with my mother, sister and aunt for a trip to “Ichita,’’ my version of Wichita, Kan. I was very young. I was given a stuffed monkey, named Jiggs, to keep me occupied on the trip. I still have it someplace in storage.

I remember riding in a compartment and looking out the window as we left the station. Houses gave way to open fields and farms. I remember seeing the train’s engine in the distance when the track would curve. It belched dark smoke that hung in clouds in the air. My memory of that trip is in black and white, like scenes from a classic movie.

Today’s lesson: Making a mistake can turn out to be a good thing.



If you have news about something happening on Range Line Road, dial (417) 623-3480, ext. 7250; or send an e-mail to wkennedy@joplinglobe.com; or send a fax to Wally Kennedy at (417) 623-8598.