‘Loony and lovely’: Abilities Diner server might just make you a regular

If you go to Abilities Diner and Bakery on a Sunday morning, you’ll likely be greeted by Kimberly Detwiler with a sunny, “Good morning! You guys need some coffee in your bodies?”

As she asks this, she’s whizzing by to grab an order from the kitchen. 

Sit wherever you’d like. Once Detwiler drops off some plates of stuffed French toast and chicken-fried steak to her other table, your cup will be full.

“I’m gonna get everyone loaded up!” she says with gusto, carafe in hand.

Need a recommendation? Detwiler might tell you the breakfast burrito is really good, and contend that sweet cream pancakes are superior to buttermilk.

Detwiler is a beloved server at Abilities Diner and Bakery in west Eugene. She’s also legally blind in one eye and has limited use in her left arm.

“That makes my job much more challenging,” she said, then pointed to the computer pad she takes orders on. “As you can see, when I’m looking at the tablet, I have to have it, like, right up to my face.” 

As for her arm: “You can’t really tell, but it’s pretty stuck.”

What might seem like setbacks for a restaurant job are part of what qualify Detwiler to work at Abilities: The Eugene diner is staffed entirely by people living with disabilities. 

Owner Julie Fitzgerald opened Abilities in 2024 to help people like her son, Alex Perez, who has severe autism, find steady employment. She wants her diner “to be so successful that I have to open another one so I can hire more people.”

Fitzgerald called Detwiler’s arrival “a blessing.”

Abilities is the kind of place where you don’t have to worry about accommodations. Folks who use wheelchairs can roll in with ease, people are heard no matter if they’re verbal or nonverbal, and the kitchen will blend food for guests with dysphagia and other dietary constraints.

“Whatever they need to enjoy our food,” Detwiler said.

“We’re an all-inclusive space,” she said. “Everybody’s human and everybody’s different. Anyone can come in here and feel like family. That’s the value I bring here.”

That, and her hospitality skills. 

“Service is lacking in Oregon, and so many people are craving it,” she said. “So, I capitalized on that.”

‘It’s Kimberly we go back for’

Erika Willis didn’t know Abilities existed until it was burglarized last year: Thieves broke into the diner, damaging property and stealing money.

The Eugene resident wanted to support Abilities, so she dined there soon after reading about the crime in the news. She’s returned dozens of times since and insists on sitting in Detwiler’s section.

“She’s part of our experience,” Willis said of Detwiler. “She’s personable with people she waits on. I think that’s what drew us when we started going back.”

Willis dines there with her siblings at least every other week. Detwiler knows the orders of Willis’ brother (the eggs Benedict) and sister (a sampler plate called “Flexibility”) by heart, while Willis “hops around” the menu.

“I really like their food,” Willis said. “I recently had breakfast somewhere else and thought, ‘Gosh, it’s better at Abilities.’ But it’s Kimberly we go back for. She’s in a good mood, she knows us by now, and I just wouldn’t have it any other way.”

If your dad is in the hospital, or your kid is graduating, or, in Willis’ case, if you’re in the middle of a big move, Detwiler will ask about it.

She remembers the lives and orders of all her regulars, even during the morning rush while brewing another pot of coffee, checking tables, running food, welcoming guests, filling up on ice, checking for reservations and dropping checks.

“Let me grab her,” Detwiler said as one of her regulars walked in. “I already know what she wants. Hi MaryBeth!”

The two struck up a conversation while MaryBeth was waiting for a friend to join her for breakfast.

“​​He’s a sweet pea,” Detwiler said of MaryBeth’s friend, before dryly adding, “even though he has the name of my ex-husband.”

Back to her roots

Detwiler’s first job was waitressing at a place called Spoons. She was 18 and living in the Bay Area, where she’s from.

From there, her career spanned pizza joints, computer sales, Fortune 500 companies and a veterans’ in-home care business she co-founded in 2015. Still, Detwiler is a server at heart. She returned to those roots 30 years later, in 2021, when she moved to Eugene and got a job at Shari’s Cafe. There, she met Fitzgerald, who became Detwiler’s regular until Shari’s closed in 2024.

That same year, Fitzgerald hired Detwiler shortly after opening Abilities.

Detwiler, 57, intends to work there until she retires. Abilities Diner is where she can be her “loud”, “loony” and “lovely” self, she said.

Yes, the service is fast, the food (especially that stuffed French toast, with housemade challah, sweet cream cheese, berries and warm syrup) is top-notch diner fare, and you won’t leave hungry.

But you may find yourself coming back to Abilities for a certain familiar face.

“Knowing that everything’s going to be OK just by meeting somebody else — that’s kind of what I try to give other people,” Detwiler said. “It’s about connection.”

If you go

Abilities Diner is open at 7 a.m. every day, at 790 Blair Blvd., Eugene.