Postcards: The Spudnut Shop

Last week, I wrote about Helen Millward, National Sandwich Queen and co-owner, with her husband Bill, of Fallon’s Spudnut Shop. Anyone living in Fallon during its years of operation (1953-1978) will remember the Spudnut Shop—for the Spudnuts, of course, as well as for hearty breakfasts, pies—wonderful homemade pies—and creative sandwiches, including Helen’s award-winning Atlasta Beef Sandwich. 

Spudnuts were a culinary invention of brothers Al and Bob Pelton, of Salt Lake City. The brothers had eaten potato-based doughnuts in Germany, and, after a number of failed experiments, they developed a dry potato mix that worked for them and made it possible to franchise a chain of Spudnut Shops. In 1953, Helen and Bill visited Utah, where she tasted a Spudnut. “I thought it was the best thing I had ever eaten in my life… I thought it would be a good business to go into.” They started out selling just Spudnuts, coffee, soft ice cream and soda pop from a small building constructed on the Atlasta Ranch owned by Helen’s mother, Minnie Blair (1350 South Taylor Street).

The rest of the story is a local version of achieving the American Dream through luck, talent and seized opportunities. 

According to Helen’s Oral History (1990, Churchill County Museum), first, they added a sandwich called the barbecue bun. “People meet me yet and say they sure would like to have a barbecue bun. It was a hamburger bun but it wasn't cut in two halves -- it was the whole bun and you made a slit in the bun with a knife and you put it on a toaster, slid it so it was toasted on both sides, and you wanted it nice and crisp and then you had this hot barbecued beef . . . we got a special spice, we ordered it out of Chicago. … Then, the teachers would come out and have a barbecue bun and a Spudnut and I'd think, ‘Oh it's a shame,’ so I'd make a lemon pie and they'd all have a piece of lemon pie for their lunch besides their barbecue bun. Then I started making a tuna sandwich or a deviled egg sandwich. Then I decided I could make a ‘little special’ for their lunch, so I would make a pasta dish or a casserole or I'd make them crab salad.”

As quickly as the teachers discovered this little gem of a restaurant, so did the truckers. “The truck drivers came right from the very beginning. There were ammunition trucks going to Hawthorne and they could not stop in town and we were out of the city limits. They would stop for a Spudnut and coffee. And after I came one morning, a truck driver came and he said, ‘I am sick and tired of eating a Spudnut and coffee every morning for breakfast.’ And I said, ‘Do you want two fried eggs?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘watch the shop.’ I ran out to the henhouse behind the shop and grabbed two eggs from under a hen, I ran to the house and got two slices of bread and popped it in the toaster and fried the two eggs and ran back to the shop and set it down in front of the truck driver. He said, ‘Well that is service!!’”

Next, the early morning duck hunters made eating at the Spudnut Shop a ritual. “Oh, yes, we got it finally to the point where I was there about five o'clock or maybe three o'clock. When we still had the little old shop, we got a stove, then there was a group of duck hunters that used to come from Reno, they were doctors and had a duck pond on the Sorensen Ranch. It was a private club. They always used to stop and buy Spudnuts on their way back to Reno. One day they called me from Reno and asked me if I would open up and cook them breakfast at four o'clock the next morning and I said yes. So at four o'clock the next morning I was over there, and I had ham and bacon and eggs ready to cook for them.”

Helen and Bill remodeled and expanded the building in 1957, and business got bigger and better. Helen said of their success, “Well, I get bright ideas and I like to carry them out, but I had lots of help.” In 1978, the Millwards, ready to retire, sold the Spudnut Shop to a new owner who changed its name to The Cock and Bull. An era had ended. 

Please send your stories and ideas for stories to mackedon@phonewave,net.