Lloyd Rasmussen purchased Todd’s Diner in 1954, Beginning Lowville Staple Lloyd’s of Lowville.
Nestled at Routes 12 and 26 intersections, Lloyd’s of Lowville has served the greasy spoon in loving heapfuls since 1954. It couldn’t have any better location, where the low road meets the high road before exiting Lowville, both routes leading to Turin and Boonville. Surrounded by other eateries, some local and others of national chains, the diner known for its friendliness has remained popular despite its competition.
Lloyd Rasmussen purchased the business from an ailing Ralph Todd in September 1954. Todd had operated Todd’s Diner for thirteen years and had previously owned a restaurant in Schenectady, N.Y., before relocating to Lowville. Todd sold the business a mere three months before he passed in December, and Lloyd rebranded it Lloyd’s of Lowville, a name that has stuck well after his death in May 1979.
Born in the nearby town of Greig on February 18, 1921, Lloyd attended school in Glenfield. After serving in the Army Air Force in the China-Burma theater and a stint as a self-employed carpenter, he purchased a restaurant, which he operated until 1954 when he purchased the Todd Diner. It was in 1951 that his cook made the Watertown Daily Times’s July 27 edition with the following anecdote—
Lowville, July 26 — No amount of persuasion will henceforth convince one local resident of the pleasures of cooking his own breakfast.
George Coolidge, Dewitt Street, Lowville, decided to fry bacon and eggs for his breakfast Sunday morning. With the bacon ready, he then cracked an egg into the pan and to his amazement and dismay it was a chicken and not an egg that dropped into the skillet.
At this point Mr. Coolidge gave up and thought he would buy breakfast at the restaurant run by his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Rasmussen, at whose house he lives.
As he entered the door he was greeted by words and music of the current popular tune, “How do you like your eggs in the morning?” which a thoughtful patron had dialed on the jukebox.
Through the next 23 years, Lloyd’s of Lowville was a popular eatery under Lloyd’s ownership. He also added at least two other businesses as co-owners: a liquor store and Lewis Lanes.
After his death in 1979, the diner remained closed for five months when Donald V. Bibbons, who owned the Coahn M. and Son clothing store on South State Street, purchased it. Lloyd’s widow, Joan St. Louis Rasmussen, his third wife he married in 1975, assisted Bibbons with training the new employees to run with the same attributes as it had under Lloyd. She had told the Watertown Daily Times, “The restaurant had always done a brisk business because of its location, and because “the waitresses were pleasant, and they didn’t make you wait.”
Lloyd’s of Lowville reopened at 6 a.m. Monday, November 12, for the first time in nearly six months. Word of mouth had yet to spread, and little had been done to promote its return, but management was confident that the business would return. The slow opening also allowed for on-the-job training, with Mrs. Rasmussen helping to train a new waitress to keep the business’s “reputation intact.”
That was 45 years ago, and the little dinner at the apex of Utica Blvd (Rt 12) and Turin Road (Rt 26) is still going strong. Very little has changed except the aforementioned competition around it, along with some minor enhancements to the exterior’s front. Otherwise, it looks very much the same as it has over the last seventy years. Evidently, not much has changed inside, either, and perhaps that’s what keeps the regulars returning.
