KD’s Diner
By Erica McCreedy

Location: Northeast Corner of Ernest Street & E. Prien Lake Road
Hours of Operation: M-Sa, 24 hours
Contact: 337-479-2009

In a world filling up with restaurant chains and fast food clones, KD’s Diner sits quaintly on the corner of E. Prien Lake Road and Ernest and unassumingly brings to the table a menu full of diner standards and specialties with a Louisiana flare. KD’s has become a staple in the lives of Lake Chuckers for years. You won’t find stylized and ornate dishes of crab au gratin or spotless utensils wrapped delicately in cloth napkins. Here every item on the menu is deliberate and doesn’t skip around promises of the cookie-cutter entree recipe written hundreds of miles away.

Since I can remember, KD’s has not only been the Lake Charles mid-city diner but it’s also been a great spot for the 3 a.m. breakfast or midnight lunch. Open twenty-four hours a day, six days a week, the food and early morning night-life hasn’t stopped. You’ll find college professors, skaters, business men, and grandmothers living off of KD’s home-cooked style biscuits and gravy, grill-born cheeseburgers, and famous poboys. Their loyal customer base only shows us that KD’s Diner is one of the local businesses that will easily continue on throughout the years.

The food is modest, even perhaps humble, and accomplishes what it sets out to do while greatly satisfying the taste buds of everyone who visits. I’ve sampled my way through the menu and have found my nirvana in their constantly mouth-watering burgers. Through its down-home-cooked Southern menu, KD’s gives Lake Charles the epitome of the local hang-out. The line may wind through the door and comprise of anxious foodies waiting for one of the dozen tables to open up, but I have to say in all honesty, it’s well worth the wait.