TV Restaurants

What Happened to Café on the Route After Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives?

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Season 2 Baxter Springs, Kansas Closed December 2012

Current status

Closed

As of October 2026, Café on the Route has closed — confirmed via the business's own closure notice, April 28, 2026.

What the source shows: TripleD Nation's write-up on Café on the Route states it closed permanently on New Year's Eve 2012 after posting a farewell message on Facebook on 2013-01-02, and a Yelp listing updated August 2026 still marks the business as closed. How we decide a status →

What happened after Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives?

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives featured Café on the Route in the 'Route 66' episode, spotlighting chef Richard Sanell's crusted catfish and Aztec chicken with rum glaze, avocado, and green chiles, served inside a converted 1870 bank building in Baxter Springs, Kansas. Sanell, trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and his wife Amy opened the restaurant in the late 1990s inside the former Crowell Bank building — a structure robbed by Jesse James and Cole Younger in 1876 — and also operated it as a bed and breakfast. According to TripleD Nation's profile of the restaurant, Café on the Route closed permanently on New Year's Eve 2012, after roughly 14 years in business, posting a farewell message on Facebook on 2013-01-02; the closure was attributed to personal reasons. A Yelp listing updated in August 2026 still shows the business as permanently closed at 1101 Military Ave.

The episode Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Season 2

Episode 2
Aired
Title: Route 66 · What was featured: chef-driven Route 66 fare in a historic 1870 bank building
How Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives restaurants have fared: 27% closed →

Also in Season 2 Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives

Season 2: 36 of 45 still open · 3 renamed, moved or under new owners

All 13 Season 2 episodes →

Nearest open restaurants By distance from 1101 Military Ave

All 19 TV restaurants in Kansas →

Before you go: Businesses change fast. Always confirm directly with the restaurant — call ahead, or check its own current website or social media — before making plans around anything on this page.

Sources we checked 2 references

  1. triplednation.com https://triplednation.com/cafe-on-the-route-baxter-springs-kansas/
  2. Yelp https://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-on-the-route-baxter-springs-2
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Record ddd-0043 · checked by Cal Marchetti.