Man enjoys local restaurant since 1962

Terry Burns has been visiting Townhouse Cafe since its opening in 1962, and with that, he brings new meaning to the motto “If you like something, stick with it and life will be gravy.”

Burns was born and raised in Corydon in Harrison County and found a fascination for engineering when he was 9 after a semitrailer crashed into a bridge and went into a ditch in 1949.

The following year, he would watch intently from the playground across the street as the construction workers built a temporary bridge, and he sometimes sneaked his way onto the construction site for a closer look.

“I was always kicked off the site because they didn’t want a kid there, but that is what got me interested in civil engineering,” Burns said.

After graduating from Corydon High School, he took his interest to Purdue University, where he studied civil engineering and began working part time for the Indiana Department of Transportation while still in school.

In 1962, he started his career at INDOT’s Seymour District, which was just about when what was then known as Betty’s Townhouse opened for business.

Lois “Betty” Lebline opened Betty’s Townhouse in 1962. Lebline worked in the service industry for many years before retiring and selling her business in 1974 to Edward and Doris Kent.

The Kents ran the restaurant until 1983 when they decided to sell. A group of “regulars” from the restaurant banded together and bought the restaurant to keep their favorite eatery alive, giving ownership to Betty’s daughter-in-law, Jo Ann Sterling. Since then, ownership has been passed down to different individuals, but Burns has lived through it all.

During his time with INDOT, he would eat at Townhouse Cafe at least once a week, and since his retirement in 2005, he makes an appearance every day of the week except for Mondays when it’s closed to enjoy his biscuits and gravy.

“My wife likes to sleep late in the morning, so I get up, come here and have breakfast and do a puzzle or something, get the mail and carry on with my day,” Burns said.

After the initial spark of interest into civil engineering in 1950, 17 years later in 1967, Burns replaced that same temporary bridge and met the man who used to kick him off of the construction site years later.

“I think he was a little mad that I was replacing the bridge that he put there, but we had a good laugh after I pulled his leg a little,” Burns said, laughing.

Burns is the proud father of three daughters, a teacher in Lexington, Kentucky, a computer engineer in Austin, Texas, and the youngest who stays home to take care of him and his wife.

In his free time when he is not chowing down biscuits and gravy for breakfast, Burns enjoys the art of woodworking.

“I have made a lot of things, but one time, I made six cabinets for my wife, which was a lot of work,” Burns said.

Burns also is a member of Jackson Lodge 146 Free & Accepted Masons and Central Christian Church, both in Seymour.

A fond memory he has of one of the waitresses at Townhouse, Jade Mankiller-Bundy, was — funny enough — the day she was born.

“Jade’s dad worked for me, and his wife was going into labor at the hospital, but he was scheduled to work,” Burns said. “I told him that his assignment for that day was to be with his wife at the hospital because that is where he ought to be.”

The same day, Burns had to give communion to a member of the church because the pastor was out of town.

“Her dad saw me in the hallway and said, ‘You have to come look at my red-headed baby girl,’ so the first day I saw her was the day she was born,” Burns said.

“I enjoy seeing him every day, and I always know what he wants,” Bundy said. “He gets biscuits and gravy every single day except for one time out of the year when it’s National Pancake Day and he gets pancakes.”

Burns said Townhouse Cafe hasn’t changed too much since he started stopping by there more than 60 years ago for meals, but he always enjoys the delicious country cooking prepared by the cooks.

“You could say I am a creature of habit. If I go somewhere and I like it, I usually keep coming back,” Burns said.

Burns will be celebrating his 83rd birthday on Saturday with friends and a plate of biscuits and gravy at Townhouse Cafe.