NEW LOTHROP, MI -- The woman whose restaurant served steaks and cinnamon rolls that drew customers from all around Michigan to this tiny Shiawassee County village has died at 85.
Grace Berdina Yott died Sunday, May 22, according to an obituary published by McGeehan Funeral Homes New Lothrop Chapel.
Born in New Lothrop, Yott became one of the village’s most recognizable citizens, opening Gracie’s Restaurant in the early 1970s and operating it for more than 20 years.
She told The Flint Journal in 2001 that customers could expect a taste of home when they visited, including a massive salad bar accented with old-time offerings like liver pate, gizzards in brine and pickled beets.
“The only thing we don’t do (in-house) is the cottage cheese,” she said then. “Everything else we make ...”
Yott, whose father Cliff Confer was a cattleman and grocer, was best known for her restaurant’s steaks. In August 1988, Midwest Living magazine dubbed Gracie’s Michigan’s No. 1 steakhouse.
Yott not only owned the restaurant, located two miles west of M-13 and eight miles north of M-21, but also became the face of the business, regularly greeting and chatting with customers at their tables.
She once described the restaurant’s black and red decor, mirrors, and cascading chandeliers as a collision of homey and glitzy -- “part Las Vegas, part farmhouse.”
The restaurant was sold at auction roughly five years ago, according to Flint Journal files.
Yott’s funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday, May 26, at First United Methodist Church in New Lothrop, where she was a member. Visitation is from 2-7 p.m. Wednesday, May 25, at the church.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions are suggested to the Twin Township Ambulance, New Lothrop Public Schools, or the First United Methodist Church.
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