PORT CAPE: DOWNTOWN RESTAURANT MARKS 25TH ANNIVERSARY

The Port Cape Girardeau restaurant is situated at 19 N. Water St.

You need only to follow your nose downtown to find the Port Cape Girardeau, the city's premier rib restaurant for a quarter century.

The restaurant in a historic three-level, 163-year-old building at Water and Themis streets, is regionally known for its hickory-smoked barbecue ribs and pond-raised boneless catfish filets. The menu includes a variety of sandwiches, salads and other side orders.

Dennis "Doc" Cain, the restaurant's owner since 1988, said the secrets to great ribs are: "A quality cut of meat, the right rub with a blend of seasonings, a lot of smoke, slow cooking and a superb sauce or two."

The secret to maintaining a high-quality restaurant for 25 years, Cain said, is appealing menus and new service options.

Port Cape has offered an extensive catering service for some time, and now, as part of its 25th anniversary celebration, has added a delivery service.

"The delivery service is really catching on," said Cain. "We started it a few days ago, and the response has been good."

There is no limit to the delivery service.

"We deliver a full meal, or a hamburger and fries," said Cain. Delivery hours start at 11 a.m. Monday through Saturday and at 4 p.m. Sunday.

Another new service, introduced recently, is the "Corporate Lunch Link," which offers selections of a seven-menu dinner for groups of 20 or more.

"These are both great additions for our business," he added.

Port Cape opened in December 1974 as a family restaurant owned by David B. Knight and Associates, which included David B. Knight, his father, Wallace R. Knight, and his sister, Mary Miller.

The Knights acquired the property, which had been vacant more than a dozen years, in early 1974.

The Port has undergone some changes since then.

In 1975, the Knights purchased an adjoining building to the south for additional downstairs space, and an upstairs banquet facility.

A decade later, Port Cape underwent a complete remodeling program.

The restaurant's popular "newspaper" menu concept also emerged in 1984. The menu, a favorite souvenir for tourists, is filled with articles and historic facts about Cape Girardeau and the Mississippi River.

It was also about this time David Knight created a separate business operation -- Ole Hickory Pits -- manufacturing commercial-sized barbecue pits, marketed throughout the United States.

In 1988, Cain, and his wife, Karen Pobst Cain, purchased the restaurant.

Cain has been in the food business more than 20 years.

Prior to buying the restaurant, Cain was territory manager with Kraft Foodservice of Memphis, Tenn., selling food products to restaurants, hospitals and schools.

Over the past 10 years, Cain has made a number of significant changes in the restaurant. These include:

-- The Yacht Club. Opened in 1990, the Yacht Club is a large banquet room and entertainment center. The second-floor Yacht Club is used for private functions, dinner shows and various stage acts, including comedy.

-- The Captain's Quarters. Added in 1996, this is a downstairs facility for banquets.

"We're developing a good banquet business," said Cain. "A number of civic clubs are now meeting here."

Cain was honored in 1991 by the Southeast Missouri Chapter of the Missouri Restaurant Association as "Restaurateur of the Year."

The property dates to the Spanish land grant to Louis Lorimier, Oct. 26, 1795. It has changed hands a number of times. It was once owned by Bartholomew Cousins, who laid out the city's first streets. Later it was owned by the Giboney family and the Houck family. When Knight purchased the building, it was owned by Martin Hecht.

The building was originally constructed as a 3 1/2- or four-level building, and in the early years, was used as a chandlery, a business that supplied goods for riverboats and riverboat workers.

The building served briefly as headquarters for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1861 shortly after the start of the Civil War.

T-shirts touting that historic fact are for sale at the restaurant, with the port's 25th anniversary commemorative T-shirt of the tarring of the "Portly Pig."

During its colorful lifetime, the Port Cape building has housed a number of businesses, including a hotel, brothel, furniture store, warehouse for bootleg whiskey during prohibition and restaurant.