RESTAURANT TO LOCATE IN TRUCK CENTER

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- A family-oriented restaurant will open in the new Rhodes Travel Center, across Interstate 55 from the Municipal Airport, in mid-May. The Milestone 101 restaurant is the first venture in the Midwest for Food Masters Inc. of Raleigh, N.C.

The 14-year-old company is leasing space in the center from owner Gene Rhodes. The new facility replaces a former truck stop Rhodes built 25 years ago.

Walter Keezel, president of Food Masters Inc., said the company locates almost all its restaurants in truck stops along major highways. The nine existing eateries are in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.

"We cater to local people, travelers and truckers," he explained. "It is geared to family trade. We feature an `all you care to eat' buffet for lunch and dinner. The buffet includes three or four entrees, six vegetables, a complete salad bar and a desert bar."

Milestone 101 will be open 24 hours a day, and breakfast will be available anytime.

The restaurant will seat 205 customers. A meeting room for 70 can be set off. The new restaurant will employ about 50 people.

Keezel was in Cape Girardeau last week to survey the building and handle paperwork for the restaurant opening. He said several factors were involved in the decision to locate here.

"This is one of the most up-to-date centers of its kind in the country," Keezel said. "This travel center has all the niceties for the traveling public and truckers."

Expansion plans for Food Masters includes adding more restaurants between this area and the East Coast.