WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) - Members of the Wichita Community are remembering actress and Wichita native Kirstie Alley Tuesday. 

Alley’s family announced she died at 71 Monday following a recent cancer diagnosis. Alley owned a home in Wichita in the College Hill area. 

“She was just another person who came in, and yeah, she was famous, but yes, she was lovely,” owner of Watermark Books and Cafe Sarah Bagby said. 

Alley was a customer at Watermark. In 2012, she hosted a book signing at the store, one of Bagby’s favorite memories. 

“She made so many people happy,” she said. “I mean, she…there were fans here, there were people that are friends, there were people that went to high school with her, so it was really, really a kind of a local person comes home.”

Bagby said Alley’s two children were in attendance during the signing for Alley’s book “The Art of Men (I Prefer Mine al Dente).” She said Alley often stopped at the cafe and went shopping around the holiday season.

“She wasn't shy, and her voice carried, so it was really hard not to notice her, but everybody kind of gave her her space,” Bagby said. 

Alley was also a regular at Tanya’s Soup Kitchen. Owner Kelly Rae Leffel said during one of Alley’s trips to Wichita, she served as her “personal chef.” 

“She’d even be like, ‘Okay, I love this Kelly, but you need to make the cucumbers smaller.’” Leffel said. “And I was like, ‘Oh, okay. I'll make that. I'll do that for you, whatever you want.’”

The Wichita restaurant posted on Facebook Tuesday in her honor. Leffel described Alley as “a doll.”

“Her presence was alluring, because she's a star, and she's a great person,” Bagby said. 

You can still see Alley’s holiday display at her College Hill house on Douglas. The decorations are from the set of the movie “Look Who’s Talking”, which she starred in with John Travolta.