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FULLERTON, N.D. — Jerry Kelsh said he wasn’t sure what he was going to do for coffee on Dec. 1, the first day after the Ranch House was going to shut down.
“That’s a good question,” Kelsh said Tuesday, Nov. 29, the second to last day for the only restaurant in town to be open. “I’ve thought about setting up a pot at the house, letting people, few of the ones that want to come and gab for an hour, do it. If you want to bring a doughnut, great.”
There has been a regular morning coffee gathering at the Ranch House, which has been community owned for about 20 years.
Sometimes its community members who make the coffee on Sunday mornings for the after-church crowd.
But it also serves lunch and dinner and is the only bar in the town of about 60 people. It’s an aging community, says Dean Simek, who he grew up in the bar when it was owned by his father.
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“One thing that’s really going to be missed is the senior meals,” Simek said. “There’s probably 20 people back there having senior meals.”
What became known as the Ranch House was later owned by Kelsh, who sold it to his son, Jack. But on Thanksgiving weekend in 2000, a fire destroyed the back dining area of the Ranch House.
It was after that that the townsfolk, including Simek and Kelsh, got together to create Ranch House Renewal Inc. Money, materials and labor were donated to get it back open as a community-owned restaurant and bar.
But the Ranch House was closing Nov. 30, 2022, something Kelsh says is only temporary until a new operator can be found.
“We’re going to do everything we can to get her going again,” said Kelsh, who remains chairman of the Ranch House Renewal Board.
The board has been in touch with a couple of interested parties and hope to soon hear proposals for its continued operation.
Simek has served on the Fullerton City Council and as mayor and is finishing up a stint on the Dickey County Commission.
“It kinda holds the community together,” Simek said of the Ranch House
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Simek said the Ranch House will continue to get some community use in December.
“We’re going to have Tom and Jerry night on the 18th,” Simek said, referring to the traditional holiday cocktail. “It’s always been a big thing in Fullerton to make Tom and Jerrys.”
Simek has early memories of making Tom and Jerrys.
“I remember making Tom and Jerrys in the vault there, when I had to stand on a box to make them for my dad,” he said.
The vault he refers to is a back room that was a vault when the front part of the building was built in 1916 to be the Fullerton State Bank.
It first became a bar in 1937, according to the city of Fullerton website, and is the only bar left in town.
As a restaurant, the Ranch House became known for its ribs.
“People come a long ways to eat the Ranch House ribs,” Simek said.
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It still gets some visitors who have come a long way to Fullerton. A group of pheasant hunters was eating lunch at the bar, under the watchful eye of the mounted heads of a bison and a bull.
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Simek said the fall hunting season is a busy time of year. Some stay at the Carroll House, down the street. Built as a hotel in 1889, the Carroll House is on the National Register of Historic Places and still rents out rooms for visitors or for events such as weddings.
It has relied on the Ranch House to provide food for those events and for people staying at the Carroll House, the Ranch House is the only local option for food and drinks.
From Fullerton, the nearest towns are Oakes, Lamoure, Ellendale, Edgeley — all 15 to 20 miles away. The closest big town would be Aberdeen, South Dakota, about an hour to the south.
Larry Ulmer, one of the regulars, said some folks drive from the neighboring towns, “just for the atmosphere.”
“It’s really a tough situation,” Ulmer said, with the rising cost of food and the scarcity of labor. “I wish I had an answer.”
Kelsh — who once farmed himself and served in the North Dakota Legislature — and Simek have seen the town’s population shrink as farms have gotten larger and families smaller.
“With a thriving farming economy, we still lose people,” Kelsh said. “Less to draw from than there used to be.”
But Simek hopes the answer comes from a young couple willing to put in the work to revitalize the Ranch House and make it thrive again. He says it's very doable.
“No questions about that in my mind,” Simek said.
For anyone interested in operating the Ranch House, Kelsh can be reached at 701-375-7521.
