DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) — From cupcakes to cookies to pies, the sweets pile up at Coney McKane's.
Each of them flows up from the basement — courtesy of the restaurant's no-so-secret weapon.
"I've just kind of been that way: if I want to do it, I do it," said Florence "Grandma Flo" Coombes.
"Grandma Flo" wants to bake. She crafts each masterpiece by hand, building her legend with pie crusts and cakes.
"It's kind of embarrassing sometimes," she said through a laugh. "What if it's not good?"
You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks her sweets are just "good" — let alone "not good." Each batch is guided by nothing but 65 years of baking experience — 27 of which has come in the basement of Coney McKane's.
"I started out with a recipe years ago," Coombes said. "But now I take a handful of this and a handful of that."
Nothing can stop Flo's...well...flow — not even time. She turns 90 years old on January 15, but she's still starts baking every day at 4 a.m.
"Really, it's not any different than last year to me," she said.
That's not the case for fellow Coney McKane's employees Teddi Albright and Bunny Thomas. That's because Flo isn't "Grandma Flo" to them — she's just "Mom."
"She's 90, but she works harder than anybody else," Albright said. "It's kind of weird that we have a celebrity mom for just baking."
Thomas agrees and quickly recounted stories of people — both young and old — coming up to Coombes to snag a quick picture.
"She's a much bigger celebrity than she even realizes," Thomas said. "People...want to hug her."
Flo knows baking — and as long as she's able, she plans to continue spreading love and sweets throughout central Illinois.
"I have so many people who come over and say 'I love this or that,'" Coombes said. "It just makes you feel good."
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