May 9, 2009

Couple has right mix for retailBy Lisa SandmeyerCJOnline.com

Frankfort, KS — It’s the fudge that brings most customers into Elsie Grace’s.

But they’ll find a lot more inside the store that constitutes most of this town’s retail business district.

“The idea was to have a shop that when people walked in they would say, ‘Ooh, I love this place,'” said owner Nan Lisher, who does all the buying for the gift shop and created the food mixes with the Elsie Grace’s label.

“There has been fudge on this corner for at least 20 years,” Lisher said.

The corner is where customers enter the building at Kansas Avenue and 2nd Street, which is K-99 highway.

Lisher has expanded the shop into three other connecting buildings. The second floor is now the 1887 Bankers Inn.

The inn was the creation of the 2nd Street Corp., a partnership of six local couples, including Lisher and her husband, Ray.

“We knew we had to save (the building) if we were going to save Frankfort,” Nan Lisher said.

Corporation members include a carpenter, an electrician and a decorator, she said. Each couple in the partnership committed two nights a week to the rehabilitation of the second floor.

“When we got this building, it was in bad shape,” she said.

That was in 2002.

Today, the inn boasts four spacious rooms available for overnight stays or for parties.

“It’s an asset to the town,” Lisher said.

But food has always been at the center of Lisher’s life.

She had a restaurant in Frankfort for five years, in between stints as the dietary manager at the local care home.

“I had health insurance and paid vacation,” she said. Then she decided she wanted to do something different.

Her grandmother, Elsie Grace Tilly, had some great recipes.

“Her apple pie was to die for. And her chocolate pie was delicious,” Lisher said.