America’s Best Restaurants sets cameras on McHenry’s Kim & Patty’s Cafe

When content maker America’s Best Restaurants rolls into a town to do an episode on a restaurant, they are not necessarily doing a story on the best restaurant in that community.

Instead, “this is a restaurant in your community you should know about because it is putting out a great product and it is involved in the community,” said Matt Plapp, CEO of the marketing and video company.

When America’s Best Restaurants rolled into McHenry on March 19, the story it wanted to tell was the one from Kim Ribar’s restaurant. On Friday, that video highlighting Kim & Patty’s Cafe will go live on their Facebook page as well as associated TikTok, Instagram and YouTube channels.

Ribar has been running the diner at 731 Ridgeview Drive for the last 14 years. Unlike many of McHenry’s restaurants, Kim & Patty’s is not on Route 120 or Route 31, or even on Green or Main streets.

Instead, Ribar’s restaurant is nestled in the Inland Business Park. Instead of having stores and competing restaurants next door, her neighbors are industrial users and office buildings.

Ribar worked at the location under a previous owner before buying the restaurant. But it wasn’t getting the clientele she knew the location should attract.

“I knew customers at lunchtime were coming from the industrial park” but drove past instead of stopping for lunch. Back then, Ribar said, the restaurant only offered counter service, not sit-down ordering. What customers wanted was to sit down with their friends and co-workers to have lunch and talk, not to wait at a counter.

“I knew what it could be here,” Ribar said.

It didn’t hurt, Ribar said, that she had been waitressing in McHenry since she was 15 and was a carhop at an A&W restaurant. Her front of house manager, Donna Wagner, had 50 years of experience working in Richmond and McHenry, and her head chef, Javier Zavala, has 20 years of experience.

Ribar also loves to talk to and put the right people together. She’s encouraged small business owners to expand their product lines and connects them to the companies that can help.

“Once a week, I am helping somebody with their business,” Ribar said. “I have crazy ideas.”

Those ideas included encouraging one small business to add marinara sauce to his bread lineup, and another to start producing his BBQ sauce. She connected them to a Union business that does the canning, Ribar said. She’s now playing with the idea of canning her sloppy joe sauce, too.

Her connections to the community also include running Miller’s Pub on Main Street for three years during COVID-19. Ribar is also one of the co-owners of The Vixen on Green Street.

Right now, it is Kim & Patty’s that keeps her busy. Although it’s only open until 2 p.m. and closed Mondays, the morning and daily business is strong.

“Usually, on Sunday, there is a line but you won’t wait for more than 15 minutes,” Ribar said.

He didn’t have an exact number, but McHenry’s director of economic development, Doug Martin, said there are “there are thousands of employees between the Inland Business Park and the adjacent McHenry Corporate Center.”

Still, the restaurant is a destination for most McHenry people, Martin said.

“The quality of their food, service and hospitality, ambiance, paying tribute to local veterans and first responders are what make the restaurant so special. Kim Ribar is a phenomenal owner, greets and interacts with all the patrons,” Martin said.

These are the kinds of stories he wants the video series to tell, Plapp said. While the restaurants do pay a small fee – Ribar said it was $3,000 for the video – it helps to bring attention to them.

“I hear these stories from independent restaurants, stories that they have never told anyone,” Plapp said.

It is also why many Americans will pick a mom-and-pop restaurant over a national chain – because the small guys have better stories, Plapp said.

Not every restaurant that approaches them are included in the video series. Of those restaurants they do talk to, 75% are not featured because their reviews on Google, Facebook, Yelp and other sites “are just not good. But if you have 4.7 stars on Google, you are doing something right. That is the north star for us, if you pass the mustard test,” Plapp said.