Ken's Charcoal Pits now serving meals hot, fast, fresh and made to order

It was a booming first day of business for Ken Mistler's newest business venture, a downtown grill designed to give patrons quick, hot, homemade meals that they can eat-on-the-go.

Ken's Charcoal Pits features hot dogs and hamburgers, but also offers sausages and a garbage-plate style dish Ken is calling a Pit Plate. For those who want lighter fair, there is a salad bar, and grilled chicken is an option.

Everything is made to order right in front of you with the best and freshest ingredients.

The doors to the new shop are on Main Street, but patrons can also enter through City Slickers.

"We got a lot of requests for a quick lunch," Mistler said. "People would say they really liked City Slickers, but they wished they could get in and out a little quicker, but as a full-size restaurant with a full menu, it was hard to do that."

You can dine in, get your meal to go or carry it into City Slickers, where, of course, there is beer on tap.

Mistler, who owns not just City Slickers, but also Next Level Fitness, has long avoided putting his own name on his business ventures, but was persuaded to call it Ken's after his marketing consultant, Marc Tillery, presented the concept to him. The locale features drawings of Ken's two pit bulls, which are charcoal in color. Ken's Charcoal Pits. Get it?

A lot of people are getting that the food is good. Social media lit up a bit today with early rave reviews and the word spread fast with a line out the door past the normal lunch hour.

The hours are 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and those hours will be extended as the weather warms up.