At age 80, Phyllis Bakkum is still busy cooking and serving customers at the Pancake House Restaurant at Fourth and Jay streets, where her family has operated a business for 50 years.

"I would like to do some traveling and spend more time with my children," Phyllis said last week. "But being active is one thing that has kept me healthy.

"I will keep going as long as I have my health," she said. "I enjoy it. I enjoy people."

Phyllis and her husband, Jim, built the restaurant, which opened 32 years ago. For 18 years before that, Jim ran a Standard Oil Co. service station at that location. He died in 1991.

When they were young, the Bakkums' three daughters and two sons helped at the restaurant after school and on weekends. One son, Scott, still works there as manager. "It's always interesting," he said of the business. "It's never the same."

Jim decided to get out of the gas station business because there wasn't room to expand it to a self-service station, and because he figured a recent decision to make Fourth Street one-way would result in fewer customers.

"He thought a pancake house would be ideal," Phyllis said.

"And I thought it would be nice to have a place of our own. I knew I could take care of the kitchen part, and Jim could take care of the bookkeeping. And he was very good with people."

She learned to cook while growing up on a farm and still uses some of her mother's recipes at the restaurant. "The recipes are from all over," Phyllis said. "I've been collecting them for 60 years."

The Pancake House is best known for its breakfasts- - especially pancakes, thick-sliced bacon, omelets and fresh hash browns -- and for its homemade chili, soups and baked items. In the summer, the restaurant often has homemade zucchini bread, pickles, jellies, jams and vegetables that Phyllis produces from her garden on Scott's hobby farm.

"It's a family restaurant," she said. "You give people family things."

The restaurant has survived for three decades because of quality food, Phyllis said. But she also said business was better before the Valley View Mall opened, prompting an exodus of stores from the downtown; and before the proliferation of restaurants, especially fast-food restaurants that serve breakfast.

"When we first opened, downtown was really going," Phyllis said. "There was no mall. I'm sure the downtown will come back with the new hotels and the apartments above the parking ramp. I'm sure when the ramp is finished, it'll be a booming corner," she said of the Market Square project being built across the street.

In the past 32 years, the Pancake House has served its share of celebrities. They've included mystery writer Mickey Spillane; Henry Hite (who was billed as the world's tallest man); comedians Marty Allen, Steve Rossi and Red Skelton; the Statler Brothers musical group; actress Lindsay Wagner; and actors Vincent Price, William Conrad, Jim Nabors ("Gomer Pyle") and Ken Curtis (Festus on television's "Gunsmoke.")

In May 1991, the restaurant was visited by ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" show crew, including Joan Lunden, Charles Gibson and Spencer Christian. "They were touring the United States," Phyllis said. "They were interviewing people at little family restaurants."