Gomer’s Fried Chicken to close at year’s end

• Yelp: Rhonda P.
• The chicken livers are a staple at Gomer’s.

Diners in Kansas City keep losing their touchstones. A year after Patrikio’s closed its taco bar for good, The Kansas City Star reports that Gomer’s Fried Chicken (615 E. 99th St.) is hanging it the cluck up.

Inside the strip-mall restaurant, the chicken decor leaves no question as to what they serve. The fried chicken is where some in town would point you instead of Stroud’s, and the gizzards are worth the chew. It’s also one of the few spots where you can get chicken and waffles (it’s not on the menu, but they’ll toss a waffle on the plate if you ask). The cooking is down-home — the green beans pop with little nuggets of crunchy bacon — and the service is that of a classic diner. ‘Honey’ and ‘sweetheart’ are thrown around as liberally as the white pepper in the gravy. This was the first restaurant in Kansas City where I learned that your soda refill could come with you via a to-go cup.

Gomer’s will close on December 30, but the biscuits and gravy will apparently live on. Owner Jimmy Mills will start serving the Gomer’s breakfast dishes at his other restaurant, Never on Sunday (9932 Holmes), in January. Never on Sunday is just across the parking lot of Gomer’s Plaza.