After 15 years of literally serving the area, owners of The Caboose say it’s time to step away and have put the business up for sale
It was June 2010, and Diane Fiegen and her late husband, David, were feasting on a plate full of excitement.
That October, they would open the doors to The Caboose to replace the Shetek Bend restaurant — which had closed about six months prior — and their new business quickly wove itself into the fabric of Tracy’s business tapestry.
Just over 15 years and hundreds of banquets, fundraising events and receptions later, Diane, along with Doug and John Edwards, have put the building — and one of Tracy’s most popular and beloved businesses — up for sale.
“It’s just the realization of life … we’re not getting any younger,” Diane said when explaining the decision. “We think there’s a lot of value in the business right now. We all have different goals in life going forward than what we had when we took on this endeavor in 2010.”
Those goals include doing some traveling, but more importantly, putting more focus on family. Simply put, they are looking for more freedom in their lives, as each have had anywhere from two to four different jobs at one time.
“It’s as simple as having time for my grandkids,” John said. “Having a life. My son and daughter-in-law work during the week, and our big time is the weekends.”
“And if there’s something we want to go do as a group, we can’t do it,” added Doug. “Usually two have to stay behind.”
John’s son, Tyler, cooks at The Caboose, a position he fell into after John’s car accident in 2022. But Tyler’s life is changing, too, as he is getting married later this month. “He’s planning a family — knowing that, that might be fewer people than we had previously,” Diane said. “This wasn’t his dream; he didn’t mind when he didn’t have a significant other in his life … he does help a lot yet, just not as much as it used to be because he’s got something else going on, and that’s fine.”
Having put so much blood, sweat and tears into their businesses, the trio hopes whoever the new owner is will continue the restaurant’s legacy and reputation as the place to go in Tracy.
“We hope it’s kind of the same — a restaurant, event center,” John said. “Somebody else, they can put their own name on it, but we hope it stays a restaurant.”
The decision to sell is one that has been on their stove, simmering for about five years. They have had conversations with acquaintances over the years, proving this has been on their minds for some time while knowing they don’t want to continue their current lifestyle.
“If somebody wants it, we’re willing to talk about it,” John said. “We didn’t just decide overnight to do this, it’s been coming for a long time.”
LOOKING BACK
Before taking over in 2010, Diane and David were close friends wth the Edwards boys, who are longtime farmers near Tracy. It was the former who had the desire to own a restaurant burning inside them. David had cooked in establishments for years, and Diane had decades of industry experience under her belt.
“It was kind of my dream,” she said. “The conversation happened when John and I were working at Coke, and he said, ‘Gosh, I’m working pretty hard for somebody else, we should do this for ourself.’ This happened to come up, and (John and Doug) are very emotional about Tracy.”
John said he was excited about the possibility of taking on the challenges that come with the food industry. At the time, he was going through a divorce, so internally he felt he was ready to make a big pivot in his life.
“We were working 80, 90 hours a week — I told them, ‘I’m going through a divorce, even though my kids are older, they still need me around more.’ I told them I have to go down to 50 hours a week, otherwise I’m leaving. They didn’t want to budge … so that’s when I thought I’d try something else.”
Doug was on board, too, seeing the enterprise as something new in his life. He soon learned, however, how much would go into it and how it would become part of his lifestyle.
“You don’t realize how much work is involved until you get into it,” he said.
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES Originally, the four each owned one-quarter of the business and all worked together, never really keeping close track of their hours.
“We all put everything in that we could,” Diane said.
John and David took care of kitchen duties, while Diane and Doug manned the front, essentially combining to become the face of The Caboose at the time. Doug also took care of maintenance and dealt with various technical issues that would arise. David passed away in May 2020 after a lengthy illness. That, combined with the pandemic, made for an extremely difficult year for Diane.
“Several times on our path, I thought, ‘We should just sell this,’ because it wasn’t fair to John and Doug,” she said. “Fifty-percent of the work wasn’t happening. And then John had his accident.”
John’s one-vehicle accident — he swerved to miss a deer —while driving on Lyon County Road 9 south of Amiret — happened in 2022, throwing the group yet another curveball to try to hit. He suffered a broken back and underwent months of physical therapy after spending almost three weeks in the hospital post surgery.
“We just put one foot in front of the other,” John said. “For me, it really was one foot in front of the other! One step at a time.”
THE PLACE TO GO
Being the only banquet hall in Tracy, The Caboose has seen its share of large events. From wedding receptions to prom dinners, outdoors banquets to fundraising events, the banquet hall has long been the landing spot for families and organizations looking for room and dining options.
“It feels pretty good; we’re glad we’re here for them,” John said. “I’m sure those things would still take place, but who knows where?”
As the events calendar continued to fill up month after month, The Caboose has had to adapt. The owners purchased many round tables within the first month of ownership.
“Groups didn’t own their own linens, they had to rent them,” Diane said. “Now we just charge a certain price, and we don’t ala carté anything. We don’t technically charge groups a room charge, ever. That money goes to redo the hardwood floor, painting — that’s how you pay for that. The general public doesn’t realize that, and when you don’t take (that money) in, we take it on.”
Just redoing the dance floor, Diane said, cost about $5,000.
“We do it ourselves now,” she said. “It’s a huge expense, and you don’t make money just because the dance floor is shiny. Does it look beautiful? Yeah, it does, but it doesn’t make you money.”
CRASHING AT THE CABOOSE
Because of the popularity of The Caboose, the lights are rarely off and doors locked. That, as the three learned rather quickly, can be a blessing and a curse. When business is good, their personal lives were put on hold.
“It can be overwhelming — you book a wedding the night before Mother’s Day … you realize, ‘Oh, we won’t do that again!,’” Diane said. “That year, we did close to 1,000 people on Mother’s Day. Those weekends are challenging.”
At times, it didn’t even pay to go home especially for Doug, who lives right outside of town.
“We flipped everything over for Mother’s Day … I think we got an hour of sleep,” Doug said. “They used to catch me sleeping under tables. We bought one of those hotel roll-away beds as a joke, and we still have it here. It’s a loft now.”
“We hopped on the dirty linens and took an hour of sleep,” John said.
There were times Diane stayed, too, so she wouldn’t have to face a drive back to her home in Marshall.
“With me in Marshall, I would crash here,” she said. “Or I wouldn’t crash at all; I’ve never really needed a lot of sleep.”
Diane said they choose to take on all the work of setting up and tearing down themselves.
“We just do it,” she said. “Between the cost of the staff and telling them what to do, keeping them moving — we just do it. A wedding for 400, now Doug and I can do it in about three hours. We just work as a team. But it is hard on the body as you get older.”
NOT JUST LOCKING THE DOORS
Diane emphasized that the group isn’t about to simply lock the doors on some unspecified date and walk away. They fully realize that selling the business could take a month, or it could take more than a year.
“If we have another life hurdle, who knows?” she said. “Everybody has things that happen. But we know that no business is worth anything when the doors are locked, because that’s how we bought it.”
John said they shared the news with their staff this week, and made the choice to hoid off on putting a “for sale” sign in front of the building.
DIANE AND THE LATE DAVID FIEGEN opened The Caboose in October 2010.
