Sunday, May 03, 2009

Tokio Templins

There's a tiny town in Washington state called Tokio. It's on I-90, about 50 miles southwest of Spokane. We stopped because of a) the fact we lived an hour from the real Tokyo (that's the one in Nihon--Japan) and b) Templin is an ancestral family name and c) our daughter told us about it!



Apparently the name Tokio was attached to this location in Washington by the Asian workers who built the railroad through this area of the country. Today the "town" is not much more than a Weigh Station for truckers on the interstate.


Fortunately, they did not exercise their right not to serve us.


Kathy reading the menu.


To keep us entertained while we waited for our food, the diner kindly provided humorous books similar to this one:


So if you find yourself on I-90, halfway between Spokane and the Tri-Cities, and you're looking for a place to eat, check out the (now) famous Templin's Cafe in the tiny town of Tokio.

5 comments:

Bonnie said...

This is hilarious !! I love it ! How was the food ??

Kath said...

The food was yummy, all except for the french fries and they were SUPERB! The came out of the fryer onto our plates, do not pass go.....Good, plain diner food, all's right in the world.

Ellie said...

Yeah... Templins in Tokio...

Vickie Atencio said...

If I don't make it to Tokio, Washington, maybe I can check out the book you were shown!

Anonymous said...

We drove thru on the way to Richland Washington and stopped to have lunch at "Way In" in Tokio and the food was just fine...Nothing fancy but good...I recommend the lemon meringue pie for dessert