James Hendricks runs two businesses on Broadway without leaving his barber chair. A TV over his station at Cut Time Barbershop shows a live feed from inside Koney King, the chili counter next door, Capital B Gary reported in May. He watches the grill between haircuts.
On Aug. 11, that setup turned into something more. After the derecho, Hendricks saw that the electric pole serving his business had snapped. He drove out that same day and bought a $1,300 generator, Capital B Gary reported in September. Koney King was one of the few places on Broadway with power, so people came in to eat, charge their phones and figure out what to do next. Across Gary, more than 38,000 NIPSCO customers lost power for two weeks, and some went three.
This summer, Gary's old coney counters worked like neighborhood infrastructure. They're small and owner-run, and their owners decide on the spot to keep cooking. The same handful of Broadway kitchens that fed people through the outage are now the ones bringing the corridor back together.
A recipe that has changed hands four times
Koney King is 106 years old and still cooks the chili recipe that made it famous, according to Capital B Gary's profile. Its history runs alongside the city's own:
- 1914. Mike Petroff moves to Gary at 21, a few years after Gary Works was founded, and works as a quarry foreman while he learns English.
- The early years. Petroff and a friend open Coney Island Lunch in an alley near Ninth Avenue and Broadway. Another restaurant owner hands them a chili recipe, and it becomes a chili place. A hot dog or a coffee costs a nickel. A bowl of chili or a hamburger costs a dime.
- The next generation. Petroff's nephew, Pete Kamanaroff, runs the counter alongside his own place, Indiana Sandwich Shops, for 20 years.
- February 1969. Paul Kamanaroff, Pete's son, brings both restaurants under one easier name, Koney King, and runs it for 50 years.
- 2018. Paul retires. Hendricks had been his barber for six years. He buys the business on two conditions: pay within 30 days, and learn to make the chili from scratch. He shadows Kamanaroff for six weeks.
Hendricks had his first Koney King chili dog in 1990, as a freshman at Lew Wallace High School, during a one-hour lunch break. "The nostalgia of the place deserves to be what people remember," he told Capital B Gary. "I didn't change anything." The narrow diner still looks like a vintage counter. Elisha Evans works the grill, and longtime customers order chili cheese double hamburgers, chili dogs and ham-on-the-bone sandwiches.
When Kamanaroff retired, a real estate agent asked about buying the building. Hendricks asked too. Because a neighbor bought it, a century-old counter was still running on generator power in August 2026.
What the counters did after the power went out
Hendricks's month after the storm went like this, according to Capital B Gary. He got up early each day to beat the gas lines, filled cans for the generator, and hoped the fridge and freezer held their temperature long enough to feed everyone who came in. Since then, he has started planning to clear trees around the business before the next big storm.
A few blocks along Broadway, Dr. Dexter Harris faced a different problem. His church flooded. Two kitchens he's tied to lost power: the restaurant at Flourish Community Hub, where he's executive director, and Paige & Charlie's, where he's a business partner. With stored food about to spoil, he sent it to the YWCA. Cooks and staff from the Hub restaurant, joined by church members, made and served meals, and the city used the Hub's North building downtown as a resource center.
"I think most businesses in Gary are just making it anyway, so it felt like another small grand opening. We had to reboot everything, but we're eager to get back to serving the community." — Dr. Dexter Harris, to Capital B Gary
Capital B Gary reported that these businesses had been open steadily since about two weeks after the storm. Chuck Hughes, president and CEO of the Gary Chamber of Commerce, said most member businesses had reopened with few lasting problems.
Paige & Charlie's carries a second coney line
The Broadway coney tradition has more than one family tree. Paige & Charlie's traces its start to the 1960s, when the Marshall brothers opened Brother's Coney Island. It became an after-school stop for Roosevelt High School students, who came in for pancakes, fried bologna sandwiches and chili cheeseburgers. In 2000, Charles Larkin, a veteran, retired steelworker and electrician, bought it and renamed it Charlie's Coney Island. After his death in 2012, his son Lamar Larkin kept it going. In 2025, the Larkin family partnered with Paige Harris, a chef, and Pastor Dexter Harris to keep it open as Paige & Charlie's.
That ties both coney lines on Broadway to people who spent August cooking for neighbors. The menu still reads like an old counter:
- Parkerhouse Breakfast, which the restaurant calls a longtime favorite with regulars
- Poor Man's Breakfast, two eggs and fried bologna with rice, grits or hash browns
- Fly Special, chili cheese fries topped with two over-easy eggs
- Chili cheese hot dogs and chili cheeseburgers, plus salmon croquettes and pork chop plates at breakfast
- Lemonade, frozen lemonade and Treecey's juice in pineapple ginger or green
The restaurant is on Broadway. Third-party listings show breakfast and lunch hours, Monday through Saturday, closed Sunday. Check the restaurant's site before you go, since its own pages don't post hours.
The Miller end of the same story
On South Lake Street in Miller, Tiny's Coffee Bar ran into the same choice. Co-owner Rex Blackwell watched the storm from less than half a mile away. The building took damage, water leaked in, and most of the patio umbrellas and furniture blew away. "What we started thinking about is, what can we do to help?" Blackwell told Capital B Gary. The family ran generators and gave away hundreds of meals a day. Some days they drove to Michigan City to get around gas lines. They tried opening for dine-in by lamplight, decided it wouldn't work, and put their energy into helping in other ways.
Tiny's is newer than the Broadway counters. It opened in November 2023 and is co-owned by Matthew Blackwell and his parents, Rex and Peggy, according to Northwest Indiana Business Magazine. It serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and weekend brunch, along with specialty coffee and a full bar. The brunch menu includes shrimp and grits and the café's signature brisket-and-gravy biscuit.
Broadway's restaurants now organize together
The counters were already working as a group before the storm hit. On July 11, a month before the derecho, the Broadway Restaurant Coalition held its first Brunchin' on Broadway, the Chicago Crusader reported. After the outage, a second edition followed on Saturday, Sept. 26, according to Gary 411. It ran from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. along Broadway, from 5th to 45th avenues, and organizers told The Times of Northwest Indiana they wanted it to show that "Gary is open, Gary is resilient."
The September lineup works as a list of Broadway kitchens to know: J's Breakfast Club/J's Supper Club, D&K Soul Food, Nephew's, Steel & Spice, Divalicious Desserts, Paige & Charlie's, Kings Wings & Thingz, Phamily Den and Treecey's Health Blends. Treecey's juice also shows up on the Paige & Charlie's menu.
No November or December date has been announced for a third Brunchin'. That makes the next few months a good time to try these kitchens on your own.
A fall plan, counter by counter
| Stop | Where | Order | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Koney King | 4601 Broadway | Chili dog, chili cheese double hamburger | Posted hours: Mon–Fri 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Sat 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; call ahead |
| Paige & Charlie's | Broadway | Parkerhouse Breakfast, Fly Special, lemonade | Breakfast and lunch, Mon–Sat |
| Tiny's Coffee Bar | 555 S. Lake St., Miller | Brisket-and-gravy biscuit, shrimp and grits | Brunch on weekends; Hutch Acoustics live 6–8 p.m. on Nov. 11, Dec. 9 and Dec. 23 |
| Broadway Restaurant Coalition spots | Broadway, 5th to 45th avenues | Choose from the Brunchin' lineup | Check for the next coalition date |
Koney King's own site lists the hours above, but they were posted in 2023, so call before a Saturday trip. The South Shore CVA listing has the Hutch Acoustics dates at Tiny's for the rest of the year.
Koney King exists today because a barber who'd been cutting Paul Kamanaroff's hair for six years asked to buy it.
Favela Homes is a Lake County business too, and we're grateful to every owner who kept a kitchen running in Gary this summer. Take someone to Broadway this fall and order the chili. If you ever have questions about your own house in Gary, our bilingual team will give you a straight answer, and ¡Se Habla Español! Get a Cash Offer Now.
